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TREASURE ISLAND. 



TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER. 



If sailor tales to sailor tunes, 

Storm and adventure, heat and cold, 
If schooners, islands, and maroons 

And Buccaneers and buried Gold, 
And all the old romance, retold 

Exactly in the ancient way, 
Can please, as me they pleased of old, 

The wiser youngsters of to-day : 

—So be it, and fall on ! If not, 

If studious youth no longer crave, 
His ancient appetites forgot, 

Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave, 
Or Cooper of the wood and wave : 

So be it, also ! And may I 
And all my pirates share the grave 

Where these and their creations lie 1 



Treasure Island. 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, 

Mi 

AUTHOR OF "TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY," "AN INLAND VOYAGE,' 
ETC. 



rt4 

rattjj Hluatratton*. 

BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1884. 



f 



Copyright, 1883, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



SEmbersitg ISress : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



6**- 



So 
S. L. O., 

AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN, 

IN ACCORDANCE WITH "WHOSE CLASSIC TASTE 

THE FOLLOWING NARRATIVE HAS BEEN DESIGNED, 

IT IS NOW, IN RETURN FOR NUMEROUS DELIGHTFUL HOURS, 

AND WITH THE KINDEST WISHES, 

BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOK. 



CONTENTS. 



^art I.— THE OLD BUCCANEER. 

CHAPTER pAOE 

I. The Old Sea Dog at the "Admiral Benbow" . 1 

II. Black: Dog appears and disappears ... 10 

III. The Black Spot 19 

IV. The Sea Chest 28 

V. The Last of the Blind Man ...... 37 

VX The Captain's Papers 45 



^art II— THE SEA COOK. 

Vll. I go to Bristol g 4 

VIII. At the Sign of the "Spy-glass" . . . .61 

IX. Powder and Arms gg 

X. The Voyage 77 

XI. What I Heard in the Apple Barrel . . .85 

XII. Council of War 94 



#art III.— MY SHORE ADVENTURE. 

XIIT. How my Shore Adventure began . . . 103 

XIV. The First Blow 110 



XV. 



The Man of the Island 118 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEB 

XVI. 



XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 
XXI. 



fM ir._THE STOCKADE. 



PAGE 



Ship was Abandoned . • 

N.^txvbcoxtovbbbvtheDoctob: Tbb few 

Boat's Last Tuir . • • ' ' 

N^AT.VB CO Sffi ™ BV THB DOCTOB : La» 
THE FlBST Dat'S FlOHTTKG . • ' ' 

^^"""^^^ 

sox ix the Stockade . • • * ■ 
Silver's Embassy . 
The Attack . 



123 
135 
142 

149 

158 
lt>6 



^art V-MY ^A ADVEXTERE 

XXII. How my Sea Adyentcee began 

XXIII. The Ebb-Tide Runs 

XXIV. The Ckuisb of the Coracle . 

XXV. I Stiuke the Jolly Roger . 

XXVI. Isbabl Hands. 
XXVII. "Pieces of Eight" 



175 
184 
191 
199 

206 

218 



$Kt VI.-CAPTAIN SILVER. 

XXVIIL In the Enemy's Camp • • 

' XXIX. The Black Spot Again . 

XXX On Parole . • ■ ' ' 

XXxY The Treasvre Hvst-Ee.nts1oi.ter. • 

xxxi. ihi. AM0SG THE 

XXXII. The Tkeasvee Htwt-IHB 

Trees . 

XXXIII. The E.vll of a Chieftain . . ■ • ■ 

XXXIV. And Last - • 



227 

238 

247 
257 

267 
276 
285 



Treasure Island. 

Part I. 

THE OLD BUCCANEER. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE OLD SEA DOG AT THE "ADMIRAL BENBOW." 

! Squire Tkela^ey, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these 
gentlemen having asked me to write down the wh e 

to th end, kee pi ng nothing- back but tLe £* f 

ot t r d ;'?, ouly bocause *« is ** z£ 

not yet hfted, I take up my pen in the of 

<lL~' H S '°, J"* t0 the time When "V father kept 
Ad.mral Benbow « inn, and the brown old seam „ 
with the sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our 

pioddi^ 01 ' him r if ;t were ^-^ - * «™ 

ploddmg to the mn door, his sea-chest following behind 

^n.ahamUharro^ataihstrong.hea.y/n^i 1 :;:: 
nun, h, tarry prgtarl falling over the shoulders of 
fcs -led blue coat ; his hands ragged and scarred "tT 



TREASURE ISLAND. 



black, broken Bails; and tbe sabre eut across one 
cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking 
round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, 
and then breaking ont in that old sea-song that he sang 
so often afterwards : — 

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chests 
To-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum !" 

in the high, old tottering voice tbat seemed to have 
been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he 
rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike 
that he carried, and when my father appeared called 
rou-hly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought 
to him.be drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering 
on the taste, and still looking about him at the cliffs 
and up at our signboard. 

« This is a bandy cove," says he, at length ; and 
a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate? 

My father told him no, very little company, the 

more was the pity. ,,_«.* m „ 

"Well, then," said be, "this is the berth for me 
Here you, matey," he cried to the man wbo trundled 
the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my 
chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued _ I m - 
plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I warn 
and that head up there for to watch ships off. What 
you mougbt call me? Yon monght call me cap am. 
Oh I see what you're at-there;" and he threw down 
thr c or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can 



TEE OLD SEA DOG AT THE " ADMIRAL BENBOW." 3 

tell me when I've worked through that," says he, look- 
ing 1 as fierce as a commander. 

And, indeed, bad as his clothes were, and coarsely as 
he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who 
sailed before the mast; but seemed like a mate or 
skipper, accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The 
man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set 
him down the morning before at the " Royal George ; " 
that he had inquired what inns there were along the 
coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and 
described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his 
place of residence. And that was all we could learn of 
our guest. 

He was a very silent man by custom. All day he 
himg round the cove, or upon the cliffs, with a brass 
telescope ; all evening he sat in a corner of the parlour 
next the fire, and drank rum and water very strong. 
Mostly he would not speak when spoken to; only 
look up sudden and fierce, and blow through his nose 
like a fog-horn ; and we and the people who came about 
our house soon learned to let him be. Every day, 
when he came back from his stroll, he would ask if any 
seafaring men had gone by along the road? At first 
we thought it was the want of company of his own 
kind that made him ask this question; but at last we 
began to see he was desirous to avoid them. When a 
seaman put up at the " Admiral Benbow " (as now and 
then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol), 
he would look in at him through the curtained door 
B 2 



4 treasure island. 

before he entered the parlour; and he was always sure 
to be as silent as a mouse uhen any sueh was present. 
For me, at least, there was no secret abont the matter ; 
for I was, in a way, a sharer in his alarms. He had 
taken me aside one day, and promised me a silver four- 
penny on the first of every month if I would only keep 
my "weather-eye open for a seafaring man -with one 
leo- " and let him know the moment he appeared. Otten 
enough, when the first of the month came round and I 
applied to him for my wage, he would only blow through 
bis nose at me, and stare me down j but before the week 
was out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my 
fourpenny piece, and repeat his orders to look out for 
"the seafaring man with one leg." 

How that personage haunted my dreams, I need 
scarcely tell you. On stormy nights, when the wind 
shook the four corners of the house, and the surf roared 
along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him m 
a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabohca ex- 
pressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee 
now at the hip; now he was a monstrous kind o 
a creature who had never had but the one leg, and 
that in the middle of his body. To see him leap and 
run and pursue me over hedge ^nd ditch was the worst 
of nightmares. And altogether I paid pretty dear for 
m y monthly fourpenny piece, in the shape of these 
abominable fancies. 

But though I was so terrified by the idea of the 
seafaring man with one leg, I was far less afraid of 



THE OLD SEA DOG AT THE " ADMIRAL BENBOW." 5 

the captain himself than anybody else who knew him. 
There were nights when he took a deal more rum and 
water than his head would carry; and then he would 
sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, wild sea- songs, 
minding nobody; but sometimes he would call for 
glasses round, and force all the trembling company to 
listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. 
Often I have heard the house shaking with " Yo-ho-ho, 
and a bottle of rum ; " all the neighbours joining in 
for dear life, with the fear of death upon them, and 
each singing louder than the other, to avoid remark. 
For in these fits he was the most over-riding companion 
ever known ; he would slap his hand on the table for 
silence all round ; he would fly up in a passion of anger 
at a question, or sometimes because none was put, and 
so he judged the company was not following his story. 
Nor would he allow any one to leave the inn till he had 
drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed. 

His stories were what frightened people worst of 
all. Dreadful stories they were ; about hanging, and 
walking the plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry 
Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish 
Main. By his own account he must have lived his 
life among some of the wickedest men that God ever 
allowed upon the sea; and the language in which he 
told these stories shocked our plain, country people 
almost as much as the crimes that he described. My 
father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for 
people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannised 



6 >^ TREASURE ISLAND. 

-K • • - 

over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds ; 
but I really believe his presence did us good. People 
were frightened at the time,, but on looking back they 
rather liked it ; it was a fine excitement in a quiet 
country life; and there was even a party of the 
younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him 
a " true sea-dog/' and a " real old salt/' and such like 
names, and saying there was the sort of man that made 
England terrible at sea. 

In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us ; for 
he kept on staying week after week, and at last 
month after month, so that all the money had been 
long exhausted, and still my father never plucked up 
the heart to insist on having more. If ever he men- 
tioned it, the captain blew through his nose so loudly, 
that you might say he roared, and stared my poor 
father out of the room. I have seen him wringing 
his hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the annoy- 
ance and the tenor he lived in must have greatly 
hastened his early and unhappy death. 

All the time he lived with us the captain made no 
change whatever in his dress but to buy some stockings 
from a hawker. One of the cocks of his hat having 
fallen down, he let it hang from that day forth, though 
it was a great annoyance when it blew. I remember 
the appearance of his coat, which he patched himself 
up-stairs in his room, and which, before the end, was 
nothing but patches. He never wrote or received 
a letter, and he never spoke with any but the neigh- 



THE OLD SEA DOG AT THE 

bours, and with these, for the most part, only when 
drunk on rum. The great sea-chest none of us had 
ever seen open. 

He was only once crossed, and that was towards the 
end, when my poor father was far gone in a decline 
that took him off. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon 
to see the patient, took a bit of dinner from my mother, 
and went into the parlour to smoke a pipe until his 
horse should come down from the hamlet, for we had 
no stabling at the old " Benbow. - " I followed him in, 
and I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright 
doctor, with his powder as white as snow, and his 
bright, black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the 
coltish country folk, and above all, with that filthy, 
heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting 
far gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly 
he — the captain, that is — began to pipe up his eternal 

song : — 

" Fifteen men on the dead man's chest — 
Yo-ho-ho, and a hottle of rum ! 
Drink and the devil had done for the rest— 
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum ! " 

At first I had supposed " the dead man's chest M to be 
that identical big box of his up-stairs in the front room, 
and the thought had been mingled in my nightmares 
with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by 
this time we had all long ceased to pay any particular 
notice to the song ; it was new, that night, to 
nobody but Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it 



8 TREASURE ISLAND. 

did not produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up 
for a moment quite angrily before he went on with 
his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on a new cure 
for the rheumatics. In the meantime, the captain 
gradually brightened up at his own music, and at last 
napped his hand upon the table before him in a way we 
all knew to mean— silence. The voices stopped at once, 
all but Dr Livesey's ; he went on as before, speaking 
clear and kind, and drawing briskly at his pipe between 
every word or two. The captain glared at him for a 
while, napped his hand again, glared still harder, and at 
last broke out with a villainous, low oath : " Silence, 
there, between decks ! " 

<c Were you addressing me, sir ? " says the doctor; and 
when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that 
this was so, " I have only one tiling to say to you, sir," 
replies the doctor, " that if you keep on drinking rum, the 
world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel ! " 

The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang to his 
feet, drew and 'opened a sailor's clasp-knife, and, 
balancing it open on the palm of his hand, threatened 
to pin the doctor to the wall. 

The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to 
him, as before, over his shoulder, and in the same tone 
of voice; rather high, so tbat all the room might hear, 
but perfectly calm and steady : — 

" If you do not put that knife this instant in your 
pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall hang at 
the next assizes.'" 



THE OLD SEA DOG AT THE " ADMIRAL BENBOW.'' 9 

Then followed a battle of looks between them ; but 
the captain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, and 
resumed his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog. 

" And now, sir/' continued the doctor, " since I now 
know there's such a fellow in my district, you may 
count I'll have an eye upon you day and night. I'm 
not a doctor only ; I'm a magistrate ; and if I catch a 
breath of complaint against you, if it's only for a piece 
of incivility like to-night's, I'll take effectual means to 
have you hunted down and routed out of this. Let that 
suffice." 

Soon after Dr. Livesey's horse came to the door, 
and he rode away; but the captain held his peace 
that evening, and for many evenings to come. 



CHAPTER II. 



BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. 



It was not very long after this that there occurred 
the first of the mysterious events that rid us at last 
of the captain, though not, as you will see, of his 
affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard 
frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the 
first that my poor father was little likely to see the 
spring. He sank daily, and my mother and I had 
all the inn upon our hands ; and were kept husy 
enough, without paying much regard to our unpleasant 



guest. 



It was one January morning, very early — a pinching, 
frosty morning — the cove all grey with hoar-frost, the 
ripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low 
and only touching the hilltops and shining far to 
seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual, 
and set out down the beach, his cutlass swinging 
under the broad skirts of the old. blue coat, his brass 
telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his 
head. I remember his breath hanging like smoke 
in his wake as he strode off, and the last sound I 
heard of him, as he turned the big rock, was a loud 



BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. 11 

snort of indignation, as though his mind was still 
running upon Dr. Livesey. 

Well, mother was up-stairs with father ; and I was 
laying the breakfast-table against the captain's return, 
when the parlour door opened, and a man stepped in on 
whom I had never set my eyes before. He was a pale, 
tallowy creature, wanting two ringers of the left hand ; 
and, though he wore a cutlass, he did not look much like 
a fighter. I had always my eye open for seafaring men, 
with one leg or two, and I remember this one puzzled 
me. He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of 
the sea about him too. 

I asked him what was for his service, and he said he 
would take rum ; but as I was going out of the room to 
fetch it he sat down upon a table, and motioned me to 
draw near. I paused where I was with my napkin in 
my hand. 

u Come here, sonny," says he. "Come nearer here." 

I took a step nearer. 

"Is this here table for my mate, Bill?" he asked, 
with a kind of leer. 

I told him I did not know his mate Bill ; and this 
was for a person who stayed in our house, whom we 
called the captain. 

"Well," said he, "my mate Bill would be called 
the captain, as like as not. He has a cut on one cheek, 
and a mighty pleasant way with him, particularly in 
drink, has my mate, Bill. We'll put it, for argument 
like, that your captain has a cut on one cheek — and 



12 TREASURE ISLAND. 

weTl put it, if you like, that that cheek's the right one. 
Ah, well"! I told you. Now, is my mate Bill in this 
here house?" 

I told him he was out walking 1 . 

"Which way, sonny? Which way is he gone?" 

And when I had pointed out the rock and told him 
how the captain was likely to return, and how soon, and 
answered a few other questions, " Ah," said he, "'this'll 
be as good as drink to my mate Bill." 

The expression of his face as he said these words was 
not at all pleasant, and I had my own reasons for 
thinking that the stranger was mistaken, even supposing 
he meant what he said. But it was no affair of mine, 
I thought ; and, besides, it was difficult to know what 
to do. The stranger kept hanging about just inside 
the inn door, peering round the corner like a cat waiting 
for a mouse. Once I stepped out myself into the road, 
but he immediately called me back, and, as I did not 
obey quick enough for his fancy, a most horrible change 
came over his tallowy face, and he ordered me in, with 
an oath that made me jump. As soon as I was back 
again he returned to his former manner, half fawning, 
half sneering, patted me on the shoulder, told me I was 
a good boy, and he had taken quite a fancy to me. 
"I have a son of my own," said he, "as like you as 
two blocks, and he's all the pride of my 'art. But 
the great thing for boys is discipline, sonny — discipline. 
Now, if you had sailed along of Bill, you wouldn't have 
stood there to be spoke to twice — not you. That was 



BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. 13 

never Bill's way., nor the way of sich as sailed with 
him. And here, sure enough, is my mate Bill, with 
a spy-glass under his arm, bless his old 'art, to be 
sure. You and me'll just go back into the parlour, 
sonny, and get behind the door, and we'll give Bill 
a little surprise — bless his 'art, I say again." 

So saying, the stranger backed along with me into 
the parlour, and put me behind him in the corner, so 
that we were both hidden by the open door. I was 
very uneasy and alarmed, as you may fancy, and it 
rather added to my fears to observe that the stranger 
was certainly frightened himself. He cleared the hilt 
of his cutlass and loosened the blade in the sheath ; and 
all the time we were waiting there he kept swallowing 
a§ if he felt what we used to call a lump in the throat. 

At last in strode the captain, slammed the door 
behind him, without looking to the right or left, and 
marched straight across the room to where his break- 
fast awaited him. 

" Bill," said the stranger, in a voice that I thought 
he had tried to make bold and big. 

The captain spun round on his heel and fronted us ; 
all the brown had gone out of his face, and even his 
nose was blue ; he had the look of a man who sees a 
ghost, or the evil one, or something worse, if anything 
can be ; and, upon my word, I felt sorry to see him, all 
in a moment, turn so old and sick. 

" Come, Bill, you know me ; you know an old ship- 
mate, Bill, surely," said the stranger. 



14 TBEASUKE ISLAND. 

The captain made a sort of gasp. 

" Black Dog !" said he. ; 

" And who else ? " returned the other, getting more 
at his ease. ee Black Dog as ever was, come for to see 
his old shipmate Billy, at the ' Admiral Benbow ' inn. 
Ah, Bill, Bill, we have seen a sight of times, us two, 
since I lost them two talons/'' holding up his mutilated 
hand. 

' { Now, look here," said the captain ; " you've run 
me down ; here I am ; well, then, speak up : what is 

it?" 

« That's you, Bill/' returned Black Dog, " you're 
in the right of it, Billy. I'll have a glass of rum 
from this dear child here, as I've took such a liking 
to; and we'll sit down, if you please, and talk square, 
like old shipmates." 

When I returned with the rum, they were already 
seated on either side of the captain's breakfast table — 
Black Dog next to the door, and sitting sideways, so 
as to have one eye on his old shipmate, and one, as I 
thought, on his retreat. 

He bade me go, and leave the door wide open. 
" None of your keyholes for me, sonny," he said ; and 
I left them together, and retired into the bar. 

For a long time, though I certainly did my best to 
listen, I could hear nothing but a low gabbling; but 
at last the voices began to grow higher, and I could 
pick up a word or two, mostly oaths, from the captain. 

' ' No, no, no, no ; and an end of it ! " he cried 



BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. 15 

once. And again, " If it comes to swinging, swing 
all, say I." 

Then all of a sudden there was a tremendous ex- 
plosion of oaths and other noises — the chair and table 
went over in a lump, a clash of steel followed, and 
then a cry of pain, and the next instant I saw Black 
Dog in full flight, and the captain hotly pursuing, both 
with drawn cutlasses, and the former streaming blood 
from the left, shoulder. Just at the door, the captain 
aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous cut, which 
would certainly have split him to the chine had it not 
been intercepted by our big signboard of Admiral 
Benbow. You may see the notch on the lower side of 
the frame to this day. 

That blow was the last of the battle. Once out 
upon the road, Black Dog, in spite of his wound, showed 
a wonderful clean pair of heels, and disappeared over 
the edge of the hill in half a minute. The captain, 
for his part, stood staring at the signboard like a 
bewildered man. Then he passed his hand over his 
eyes several times, and at last turned back into the 
house. 

" Jim/' says he, " rum ; " and as he spoke, he reeled 
a little, and caught himself with one hand against the 
wall. 

" Are you hurt ? " cried I. 

u Rum/' he repeated. " I must get away from 
here. Rum ! rum ! " 

I ran to fetch it ; but I was quite unsteadied by all 



16 • TREASURE ISLAXD. 

that had fallen out, and I broke one glass and fouled the 
tap, and while I was still getting in my own way, I 
heard a loud fall in the parlour, and, running in, beheld 
the captain lying full length upon the floor. At the 
same instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and 
fighting, came running down-stairs to help me. Be- 
tween us we raised his bead. He was breathing very 
loud and hard; but his eyes were closed, and his face 
a horrible colour. 

" Dear, deary me," cried my mother, " what a 
disgrace upon the house ! And your poor father 
sick!" 

In the meantime, we had no idea what to do to help 
the captain, nor any other thought but that he had got 
his death-hurt in the scuffle with the stranger. I got 
the rum, to be sure, and tried to put it clown his throat; 
but his teeth were tightly shut, and his jaws as strong 
as iron. It was a happy relief for us when the door 
opened and Doctor Livesey came in, on his visit to my 
father. 

" Oh, doctor," we cried, " what shall we do ? 
Where is he wounded V* 

<( Wounded ? A fiddle-stick's end ! " said the doctor. 
<e Xo more wounded than you or I. The man has had 
a stroke, as I warned him. Now, Mrs. Hawkins, just 
you run up-stairs to your husband, and tell him, if 
possible, nothing about it. For my part, I must do my 
best to save this fellow's trebly worthless life ; and Jim, 
you get me a basin." 



BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. 17 

When I got .back with the basin, the doctor had 
already ripped up the captain's sleeve, and exposed his 
great sinewy arm. It was tattooed in several places. 
" Here's luck/' " A fair wind/' and « Billy Bones his 
fancy," were very neatly and clearly executed on the 
forearm; and up near the shoulder there was a sketch 
of a gallows and a man hanging from it — done, as I 
thought, with great spirit. 

" Prophetic/' said the doctor, touching this picture 
with his finger. "And now, Master Billy Bones, if 
that be your name, we'll have a look at the colour of 
your blood. Jim," -he said, " are you afraid of 
blood ? " 

" No, sir," said I. 

" Well, then," said he, (t you hold the basin ; " and 
with that he took his lancet and opened a vein. 

A great deal of blood was taken before the captain 
opened his eyes and looked mistily about him. First he 
recognised the doctor with an unmistakable frown; 
then his glance fell upon me, and he looked relieved. 
But suddenly his colour changed, and he tried to raise 
himself, crying : — 

" Where's Black Dog?" 

" There is no Black Dog here," said the doctor, 
" except what you have on your own back. You have 
been drinking rum; you have had a stroke, precisely as 
I told you ; and I have just, very much against my own 
will, dragged you headforemost out of the grave. Now, 

Mr. Bones " 

c 



IV TREASURE ISLAXD. 

11 That's not my name," he interrupted. 

(l Muck I care/'' returned the doctor. " It's the 
name of a buccaneer of my acquaintance ; and I call 
you by it for the sake of shortness, and what I have to 
say to you is this : one glass of rum won't kill you, but 
if you take one you'll take another and another, and I 
stake my wig if you don't break off short, you'll die — 
do you understand that ? — die, and go to your own 
place, like the man in the Bible. Come, now, make an 
effort. I'll help you to your bed for once." 

Between us, with much trouble, we managed to hoist 
him up-stairs, and laid him on his bed, where his head 
fell back on the pillow, as if he were almost fainting. 

" Xow, mind you," said the doctor, " I clear my 
conscience — the name of rum for you is death." 

And with that he went off to see my father, taking 
me with him by the arm. 

"This is nothing," he said, as soon as he had closed 
the door. <e I have drawn blood enough to keep him 
quiet a while ; he should lie for a week where he is — 
that is the best thing for him and you; but another 
stroke would settle him." 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BLACK SPOT. 

About noon I stopped at the captain's door with some 
cooling- drinks and medicines. He was lying very 
much as we had left him, only a little higher, and he 
seemed both weak and excited. 

" Jim/'' he said, " you're the only one here that's 
worth anything ; and you know I've been always good 
to you. Never a month but I've given you a silver 
fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I'm 
pretty low, and deserted by all ; and Jim, you'll bring 
me one noggin of rum, now, won't you, matey ? " 

" The doctor " 1 began. 

But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble 
voice, but heartily. " Doctors is all swabs," he said ; 
"and that doctor there, why, what do he know about 
seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and 
mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed 
land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes — what 
do the doctor know of lands like that? — and I 
lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, 
and man and wife, to me ; and if I'm not to have my 
rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my 
c 2 



20 TREASURE ISLAND. 

blood '11 be on you, Jinx, and that Doctor swab ; " 
and lie ran on again for a while with curses. " Look, 
Jim, how my fingers fidges,^ he continued, in the 
pleading tone. " I can't keep ; em still, not I. I 
haven't had a, drop this blessed day. That doctor's a 
fool, I tell you. If I don't have a drain o' rum, 
Jim, I'll have the horrors ; I seen some on 'em already. 
I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; as 
plain as print, I seen him : and if I get the horrors, 
I'm a man that has lived rough, and I'll raise Cain. 
Your doctor hisself said one glass wouldn't hurt me. 
I'll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim." 

He was growing more and more excited, and this 
alarmed me for my father, who was very low that day, 
and needed quiet; besides, I was reassured by the 
doctor's words, now quoted to me, and rather offended 
by the offer of a bribe. 

(< I want none of your money," said I, " but what 
you owe my father. I'll get you one glass, and no 
more." 

When I brought it to him, he seized it grec lily, and 
drank it out. 

" Ay, ay," said he, ee that's some better, sure 
enough. And now, matey, did that doctor say how 
long" I was to lie here in this old berth ? " 

" A week at least," said I. 

" Thunder!" he cried. "A week! I can't do 
that • they'd have the black spot on me by then. The 
lubbers is going about to get the wind of me this 



THE BLACK SPOT. 21 

blessed moment; lubbers as couldn't keep what they 
got, and want to nail what is another's. Is that sea- 
manly behaviour, now, I want to know? But Fm a 
saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine, nor 
lost it neither ; and I'll trick 'em again. I'm not afraid 
on 'em. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 
'em again." 

As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed 
with great difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a 
grip that almost made me cry out, and moving his 
legs like so much dead weight. His words, spirited 
as they were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the 
weakness oiP the voice in which they were uttered. 
He paused when he had got into a sitting position on 
the edge. 

" That doctor's done me," he murmured. " My ears 
is singing. Lay me back." 

Before I could do much to help him he had fallen 
back again to his former place, where he lay for a 
while silent. 

" Jim," he said, at length, " you saw that seafaring 
man to-day ? " 

" Black Dog?" I asked. 

" Ah! Black Dog," says he. "He's a bad un; but 
there's worse that put him on. Now, if I can't get 
away nohow, and they tip me the black spot, mind you, 
it's my old sea-chest they're after ; you get on a horse 
— you can, can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse, 
and go to — well, yes, I will! — to that eternal Doctor 



■M 



22 TREASURE ISLAND. 

swab, and tell him to pipe all hands — magistrates and 
sieh — and he'll lay ; em aboard at the ( Admiral Benbow ' 
— all old Flint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's 
left. I was first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, 
and I'm the on'y one as knows the place. He gave 
it me at Savannah, when he lay a- dying, like as if I 
was to now, you see. But you won't peach unless they 
get the black spot on me, or unless you see that Black 
Dog again, or a seafaring man with one leg, Jim — him 
above all." 

"But what is the black spot, Captain?" I asked. 

" That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if they get 
that. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and 
I'll share with you equals, upon my honour." 

He wandered a little longer, his voice growing 
weaker; but soon after I had given him his medicine, 
which he took like a child, with the remark, "If 
ever a seaman wanted drugs, it's me," he fell at last 
into a heavy, swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. 
What I should have done had all gone well I do not 
know. Probably I should have told the whole story 
to the doctor; for I was in mortal fear lest the 
captain should repent of his confessions and make an 
end of me. But as things fell out, my poor father 
died quite suddenly that evening, which put all other 
matters on one side. Our natural distress, the visits 
of the neighbours, the arranging of the funeral, 
and all the work of the inn to be carried on in the 
meanwhile, kept me so busy that I had scarcely time 



THE BLACK SPOT. 23 

to think of the captain, far less to be afraid of 
him. 

He got down-stairs next morning, to be sure, and 
had his meals as usual, though he ate little, and had 
more, I am afraid, than his usual supply of rum, for 
he helped himself out of the bar, scowling and blowing 
through his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On 
the night before the funeral he was as drunk as ever ; 
and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, to 
hear him singing away at his ugly old sea-song; but, 
weak as he was, we were all in the fear of death for 
him, and the doctor was suddenly taken up with a case 
many • miles away, and was never near the house after 
my f ather's death. I have said the captain was weak ; 
and indeed he seemed rather to grow weaker than regain 
his strength. He clambered up and down-stairs, and 
went from the parlour to the bar and back again, and 
sometimes put his nose out of doors to smell the sea, 
holding on to the walls as he went for support, and 
breathing hard and fast like a man on a steep mountain. 
He never particularly addressed me, and it is my belief 
ie had as good as forgotten his confidences; but his 
temper was more flighty, and, allowing for his bodily 
r eakness, more violent than ever. He had an alarming 
ray now when he was drunk of drawing his cutlass and 
lying it bare before him on the table. But, with all 
that, he minded people less, and seemed shut up in his 
own thoughts and rather wandering. Once, for instance, 
to our extreme wonder, he piped up to a different air, a 



24 TREASURE ISLAND. 

kind of country love-song, that he must have learned 
in his youth before he had begun to follow the 
sea. 

So things passed until, the day after the funeral, 
and about three o'clock of a bitter, foggy, frosty after- 
noon, I was standing at the door for a moment, full of 
sad thoughts about my father, when I saw some one 
drawing slowly near along the road. He was plainly 
blind, for he tapped before him with a stick, and wore a 
great green shade over his eyes and nose; and he was 
hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge 
old tattered sea-cloak .with a hood, that made him 
appear positively deformed. I never saw in my life a 
more dreadful looking figure. He stopped a little from 
the inn, and, raising his voice in an odd sing-song, 
addressed the air in front of him : — 

"Will any kind friend inform a poor blind man, 
who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the 
gracious defence of his native country, England, and 
God bless King George ! — where or in what part of this 
country he may now be?" 

"You are at the l Admiral Benbow/ Black Hill 
Cove, my good man/'' said I. 

"I hear a voice/ -7 said he — "a young voice. TVill 
you give me your hand, my kind, young friend, and 
lead me in ? " 

I held out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken, 
eyeless creature gripped it in a moment like a vice. 
I was so much startled that I struggled to withdraw; 



THE BLACK SPOT. 25 

but the blind man pulled me close up to him with a 
single action of his arm. 

" Now, boy/' he said, " take me in to the captain." 

" Sir/' said I, " upon my word I dare not." 

" Oh," he sneered, " that's it ! Take me in straight, 
or I'll break your arm." 

And he gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that made 
me cry out. 

" Sir,-" said I, " it is for yourself I mean. The 
captain is not what he used to be. He sits with a 
drawn cutlass. Another gentleman " 

" Come, now, march/' interrupted he ; and I never 
heard a voice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind 
man's. It cowed me more than the pain ; and I began 
to obey him at once, walking* straight in at the door 
and towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer 
was sitting, dazed with rum. The blind man clung 
close to me, holding me in one iron fist, and leaning 
almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. 
u Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, 
cry out, ' Here's a friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, 
I'll do this ; " and with that he gave me a twitch that 
I thought would have made me faint. Between this 
and that, I was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar 
that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened 
the parlour door, cried out the words he had ordered in 
a trembling voice. 

The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look 
the rum went out of him, and left him staring sober. 



26 THEASUUE ISLAND. 

The expression of his face was not so much of teiTor 
as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, 
but I do not believe he had enough force left in his 
body. 

" NoWj Bill, sit where you are/' said the beggar. 
"If I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business 
is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his 
left hand by the wrist, and bring it near to my right/' 

We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him 
pass something from the hollow of the hand that held 
his stick into the palm of the captain's, which closed 
upon it instantly. 

"And now that's done," said the blind man; and 
at the words he suddenly left hold of me, and, with 
incredible accuracy and nimbleness, skipped out of the 
parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood motion- 
less, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the 
distance. 

It was some time before either I or the captain 
seemed to gather our senses ; but at length, and about at 
the same moment, I released his wrist, which I was still 
holding, and he drew in his hand and looked sharply 
into the palm. 

"Ten o'clock!" he cried. "Six hours. We'll do 
them yet ; " and he sprang to his feet. 

Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his 
throat, stood swaying for a moment, and then, with a 
peculiar sound, fell from his whole height face foremost 
to the floor. 



THE BLACK SPOT. 27 

I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But 
haste was all in vain. The captain had been struck 
dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing 
to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, 
though of late I had begun to pity him, but as soon 
as I saw that he was dead, I burst into a flood of teara. 
It was the second death I had known, and the sorrc-< 
of the first was still fresh in my heart. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SEA CHEST. 

I lost no time, of course, in telling my mother all that 
I knew, and perhaps should have told her long before, 
and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult and dangerous 
position. Some of the man's money — if he ha,d any — 
was certainly due to us ; but it was not likely that our 
captain's shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by 
me, Black Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined 
to give up their booty in payment of the dead man's 
debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride 
for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone 
and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. 
Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain 
much longer in the house : the fall of coals in the 
kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us 
with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed 
haunted by approaching footsteps; and what between 
the dead body of the captain on the parlour floor, and 
the thought of that detestable blind beggar hovering 
near at hand, and ready to return, there were moments 
when, as the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for 
terror. Something must speedily be resolved upon ; 



THE SEA CHEST. 29 

and it occurred to us at last to go forth together and 
seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner 
said than done. Bare-headed as we were, we ran 
out at once in the gathering evening and the frosty 
fog. 

The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away 
though out of view, on the other side of the next cove ; 
and what greatly encouraged me, it was in an opposite 
direction from that whence the blind man had made his 
appearance, and whither he had presumably returned. 
We were not many minutes on the road, though we 
sometimes stopped to lay hold of each other and hearken. 
But there was no unusual sound — nothing but the low 
wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of 
the wood. 

It was already candle-light when we reached the 
hamlet, and I shall never forget how much I was 
cheered to see the yellow shine in doors and windows ; 
but that, as it proved, was the best of the help we were 
likely to get in that quarter. For — you would have 
thought men would have been ashamed of themselves — 
no soul would consent to, return with us to the "Admiral 
Benbow." The more we told of our troubles, the more — 
man, woman, and child — they clung to the shelter of 
their houses. The name of Captain Flint, though it 
was strange to me, was well enough known to some 
there, and carried a great weight of terror. Some of 
the men who had been to field-work on the far side of 
the "Admiral Benbow " remembered, besides, to have seen 



30 TREASURE ISLAND. 

several strangers on the road, and, taking them to be 
smugglers, to have bolted away ; and one at least had 
seen a little lugger in what we called Kittys Hole. 
For that matter, any one who was a comrade of the 
captain's was enough to frighten them to death. And 
the short and the long of the matter was, that while we 
could get several who were willing enough to ride to 
Dr. Livesey's which lay in another direction, not one 
would help us to defend the inn. 

They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument 
is, on the other hand, a great emboldener ; and so when 
each had said his say, my mother made them a speech. 
She would not, she declared, lose money that belonged 
to her fatherless boy ; ' ' if none of the rest of you dare/'' 
she said, " Jim and I dare. Back we will go, the way 
we came, and small thanks to you big, hulking, chicken- 
hearted men. We'll have that chest open, if we die for 
it. And I'll thank you for that bag, Mrs. Crossley, to 
bring back our lawful money in." 

Of course, I said I would go with my mother; and 
of course they all cried out at our foolhardiness ; but 
even then not a man w T ould go along with us. All they 
would do was to give me a loaded pistol, lest we were 
attacked ; and to promise to have horses ready saddled, 
in case we were pursued on our return ; while one lad 
was to ride lorward to the doctor's in search oi armed 
assistance. 

My heart was beating finely when we two set forth 
in the cold night upon this dangerous venture. A full 



THE SEA CHEST. 31 

moon was beginning to rise and peered redly through 
the upper edges of the fog, and this increased our haste, 
for it was plain, before we came forth again, that all 
would be as bright as day, and our departure exposed to 
the eyes of any watchers. We slipped along' the hedges, 
noiseless and swift, nor did we see or hear anything to 
increase our terrors, till, to our relief, the door of the 
u Admiral Benbow " had closed behind us. 

I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and 
panted for a moment in the dark, alone in the house 
with the dead captain's body. Then my mother got a 
candle in the bar, and, holding each other's hands, we 
advanced into the parlour. He lay as we had left 
him, on his back, with his eyes open, and one arm 
stretched out. 

"Draw down the* blind, Jim/'' whispered my 
mother; "they might come and watch outside. And 
now/' said she, when I had done so, "we have to get 
the key off that ; and who's to touch it, I should like to 
know ! " and she gave a kind of sob as she said the 
words. 

I went down on my knees at once. On the floor 
close to his hand there was a little round of paper, 
blackened on the one side. I could not doubt that this 
was the black spot ; and taking it up, I found written 
on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short 
message : " You have till ten to-night." 

"He had till ten, mother," said I; and just as I 
said it, our old clock began striking. This sudden 



32 TREASURE ISLAND. 

noise startled us shockingly; but the news was good, 
for it was only six. 

"Now, Jim/' she said, "that key/' 

I felt in his pockets, one after another. A few 
small coins, a thimble, and some thread and big 
needles, a piece of pigtail tobacco bitten away at the 
end, his gully with the crooked handle, a pocket com- 
pass, and a tinder box, were all that they contained, and 
I began to despair. 

"Perhaps it's round his neck," suggested my 
mother. 

Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his 
shirt at the neck, and there, sure enough, hanging to 
a bit of tarry string, which I cut with his own gully, 
we found the key. At this triumph we were filled with 
hope, and hurried up-stairs, without delay, to the little 
room where he had slept so long, and where his box bad 
stood since the day of his arrival. 

It was like any other seaman's chest on the outside, 
the initial "B." burned on the top of it with a hot 
iron, and the corners somewhat smashed and broken as 
by long, rough usage. 

" Give me the key," said my mother ; and though 
the lock was very stiff> she had turned it and thrown 
back the lid in a twinkling. 

A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the 
interior, but nothing was to be seen on the top except 
a suit of very good clothes, carefully brushed and 
folded. They had never been worn, my mother said. 



THE SEA CHEST. 33 

Under that, the miscellany began — a quadrant, a 
tin canikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of 
very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old 
Spanish watch and some other trinkets of little value 
and mostly of foreign make, a pair of compasses 
mounted with brass, and five or six curious West 
Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he 
should have carried about these shells with him in his 
wandering, guilty, and hunted life. 

In the meantime, we had found nothing of any 
value but the silver and the trinkets, and neither of 
these were in our way. Underneath there was an old 
boat- cloak, whitened with sea-salt on many a harbour- 
bar. My mother pulled it up with impatience, and 
there lay before us, the last things in the chest, a 
bundle tied up in oilcloth, and looking like papers, and 
a canvas bag, that gave forth, at a touch, the jingle of 
gold. 

" I'll show these rogues that Urn an honest woman/' 
said my mother. " I'll have my dues, and not a 
farthing over. Hold Mrs. Crossley's bag.'" And she 
began to count over the amount of the captain's score 
from the sailor's bag into the one that I was holding. 

It was a long, difficult business, for the coins were 
of all countries and sizes — doubloons, and louis-d'ors, 
and guineas, and pieces of eight, and I know not what 
besides, all shaken together at random. The guineas, 
too, were about the scarcest, and it was with these only 
that my mother knew how to make her count. 
D 



34 TREASURE ISLAND. 

When we were about half way through, I suddenly 
put my hand upon her arm; for I had heard in the 
silent, frosty air, a sound that brought my heart into 
my mouth — the tap-tapping of the blind man's stick 
upon the frozen road. It drew nearer and nearer, while 
we sat holding our breath. Then it struck sharp on the 
inn door, and then we could hear the handle being 
turned, and the bolt rattling as the wretched being 
tried to enter; and then there was a long time 
af silence both within and without. At last the 
tapping re-commenced, and, to our indescribable joy 
and gratitude, died slowly away again until it 
ceased to be heard. 

"Mother/' said I, "take the whole and let's be 
going/' for I was sure the bolted door must have 
seemed suspicious, and would bring the whole hornet's 
nest about our ears; though how thankful I was that 
I had bolted it, none could tell who had -never met that 
terrible blind man. 

But my mother, frightened as she was, would not 
consent to take a fraction more than w r as due to her, 
and was obstinately unwilling to be content with less. 
It was not yet seven, she said, by a long way; she 
knew her rights and she would have them; and she was 
still arguin<y with me, when a little low whistle sounded 
a good way off upon the hill. That was enough, and 
more than enough, for both of us. 

"I'll take what I have/' she said, jumping to her 
feet. 



THE SEA CHEST. 35 

"And Fll take this to square the count/' said I, 
picking up the oilskin packet. 

Next moment we were both groping down-stairs, 
leaving the candle by the empty chest; and the next we 
had opened the door and were in full retreat. We 
had not started a moment too soon. The fog was 
rapidly dispersing; already the moon shone quite clear 
on the high ground on either side; and it was only in 
the exact bottom of the dell and round the tavern door 
that a thin veil still hung unbroken to conceal the first 
steps of our escape. Far less than half-way to the 
hamlet, very little beyond the bottom of the hill, we 
must come forth into the moonlight. Nor was this 
all; for the sound of several footsteps running came 
already to our ears, and as we looked back in their 
direction, a light tossing to and fro and still rapidly 
advancing, showed that one of the new-comers carried 
a lantern. 

"My dear," said my mother suddenly, "take the 
money and run on. I am going to faint." 

This was certainly the end for both of us, I thought. 
How I cursed the cowardice of the neighbours ; how 
I blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her 
greed, for her past foolhardiness and present weakness ! 
We were just at the little bridge, by good fortune; 
and I helped her, tottering as she was, to the edge of 
the bank, where, sure enough, she gave a sigh and 
fell on my shoulder. I do not know how I found the 
strength to do it at all, and I am afraid it was roughly 
d2 



36 TREASURE ISLAND. 

done; but I managed to drag her down the bank and 
a little way under the arch. Farther I could not move 
her, for the bridge was too low to let me do more than 
crawl below it. So there we had to stay — my mother 
almost entirely exposed, and both of us within earshot of 
the inn. v / 






CHAPTER V. 

THE LAST OF THE BLIND MAN. 

My curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear ; 
for I could not remain where I was, but crept back 
to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind 
a bush of broom, I might command the road before 
our door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies 
began to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, 
their feet beating out of time along the road, and the 
man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men 
ran together, hand in hand; and I made out, even 
through the mist, that the middle man of this trio was 
the blind beggar. The next moment his voice showed 
me that I was right. 

"Down with the door ! " he cried. 

" Ay, ay, sir ! " answered two or three ; and a rush 
was made upon the " Admiral Benbow/' the lantern- 
bearer following ; and then I could see them pause, and 
hear speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were 
surprised to find the door open. But the pause was 
brief, for the blind man again issued his commands. 
His voice sounded louder and higher, as if he were 
afire with eagerness and rage. 



38 TREASURE ISLAND. 

fe In, in, in ! " he shouted, and cursed them for 
their delay. 

Four or five of them oheyed at once, two remaining 
on the road with the formidable beo-gar. There was a 
pause, then a cry of surprise, and then a voice shouting 
from the house : — 

"Bill's dead;" 

But the blind man swore at them again for their 
delay. 

" Search him, some of you shirking lubbers, and the 
rest of you aloft and get the chest/' he cried. 

I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so 
that the house must have shook with it. Promptly 
afterwards, fresh sounds of astonishment arose ; the 
window of the captain's room was thrown open with a 
slam and a jingle of broken glass ; and a man leaned 
out into the moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed 
the blind beggar on the road below him. 

' ' Pew,"" he cried, " they've been before us. Some 
one's turned the chest out alow and aloft/'' 

" Is it there ? " roared Pew. 

" The money's there." 

The blind man cursed the money. 

" Flint's fist, I mean/' he cried. 

" "We don't see it here nohow," returned the man. 

" Here, you below there, is it on Bill ? " cried the 
blind man again. 

At that, another fellow, probably him who had re- 
mained below to search the captain's body, came to the 



THE LAST OF THE BLIND MAN. OX 

door of the inn. " Bill's been overhauled already/' said 
he, « nothin' left." 

" It's these people of the inn — it's that boy. I wish 
I had put his eyes out ! " cried the blind man, Pew. 
"They were here no time ago — they had the door bolted 
when I tried it. Scatter, lads, and find ; em/ ; 

ft Sure enough, they left their glim here/' said the 
fellow from the window. 

ts Scatter and find 'em ! Rout the house out ! " re- 
iterated Pew, striking with his stick upon the road. 

Then there followed a great to-do through all our 
old inn, heavy feet pounding to and fro, furniture 
thrown over, doors kicked in, until the very rocks re- 
echoed, and the men came out again, one after another, 
on the road, and declared that we were nowhere to be 
found. And just then the same whistle that had 
alarmed my mother and myself over the dead captain's 
money was once more clearly audible through the 
night, but this time twice repeated. I had thought it 
to be the blind man's trumpet, so to speak, summoning 
his crew to the assault ; but I now found that it was a 
signal from the hillside towards the hamlet, and, from its 
effect upon the buccaneers, a signal to warn them of 
approaching danger. 

" There's Dirk again," said one. « Twice ! We'll 
have to budge, mates." 

l( Budge, you skulk ! " cried Pew. " Dirk 'was a 
fool and a coward from the first — you wouldn't mind 
him. They must be close by ; they can't be far ; you 



40 TREASURE ISLAND. 

have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, 
dogs ! Oh, shiver my soul/' he cried, " if I had eyes ! " 

This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two 
of the fellows be^an to look here and there among- the 
lumber, but half-heartedly, I thought, and with half an 
eye to their own danger all the time, while the rest stood 
irresolute on the road. 

" You have your hands on thousands, you fools, and 
ycu hang a leg ! You'd be as rich as kings if you could 
find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there 
skulking. There wasn't one of you dared face Bill, 
and I did it — a blind man ! And I'm to lose my chance 
for you ! I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging 
for rum, when I might be rolling in a coach ! If you 
had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit you would catch 
them still." 

" Hang it, Pew, we've got the doubloons ! " grumbled 
one. 

"They might have hid the blessed thing," said 
another. u Take the Georges, Pew, and don't stand 
here squalling." 

Squalling was the word for it, Pew's anger rose 
so high at these objections ; till at last, his passion 
completely taking the upper hand, he struck at them 
right and^t in his blindness, and his stick sounded 
heavily onroore than one. 

These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind 
miscreant, threatened him in horrid terms, and tried in 
rain to catch* the stick and wrest it from his grasp. 



THE LAST OF THE BLIND MAN. 41 

This quarrel was the saving of us ; for while it was 
still raging", another sound came from the top of the hill 
on the side of the hamlet — the tramp of horses galloping. 
Almost at the same time a pistol-shot, flash and report, 
came from the hedge side. And that was plainly the 
last signal of danger ; for the buccaneers turned at once 
and ran, separating in every direction, one seaward 
along the cove, one slant across the hill, and so on, so 
that in half a minute not a sign of them remained but 
Pew. Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic 
or out of revenge for his ill words and blows, I know 
not; but there he remained behind, tapping up and 
down the road in a frenzy, and groping and calling 
for his comrades. Finally he took the wrong turn, 
and ran a few steps past me, towards the hamlet, 
crying : — 

" Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk/' and other names, "you 
won't leave old Pew, mates — not old Pew ! " 

Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and 
four or five riders came in sight in the moonlight, and 
swept at full gallop down the slope. 

At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream, 
and ran straight for the ditch, into which he rolled. 
But he was on his feet again in &, second, and made 
another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the 
nearest of the coming horses. 

The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down 
went Pew with a cry that rang high into the night; 
and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him and 



4& TREASURE ISLAND. 

passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed 
upon his face, and moved no more. 

I leaped to my feet and hailed the riders. They were 
pulling up, at any rate, horrified at the accident ; and I 
soon saw what they were. - One, tailing out behind the 
rest, was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to Dr. 
Livesey's ; the rest were revenue officers, whom he had 
met by the way, and with whom he had had the intel- 
ligence to return at once. Some news of the lugger in 
Kitt's Hole had found its way to Supervisor Dance, and 
set him forth that night in our direction, and to that 
circumstance my mother and I owed our preservation 
from death. 

Pew was dead, stone dead. As for my mother, when 
we had carried her up to the hamlet, a little cold water 
and salts and that soon brought her back again, and she 
was none the worse for her terror, though she still 
continued to deplore the balance of the money. In the 
meantime the supervisor rode on, as fast as he could, to 
Kittys Hole ; but his men had to dismount and grope 
down the dingle, leading, and sometimes supporting, 
their horses, and in continual fear of ambushes; so it 
was no great matter for surprise that when they got 
down to the Hole the lugger was already under way, 
though still close in. He hailed her. A voice replied, 
telling him to keep out of the moonlight, or he would 
get some lead in him, and at the same time a bullet 
whistled close by his arm. Soon after, the lugger 
doubled the point and disappeared. Mr. Dance stood 



THE LAST OP THE BLIND MAN. 43 

there, as he said, " like a fish out of water/' and all he 

could do was to despatch a man to B to warn the 

cutter. " And that/'' said he, " is just about as good as 
nothing. They've got off clean, and there's an end. 
Only/'' he added, "I'm glad I trod on Master Pew's 
corns ; " for by this time he had heard my story. 

I went back with him to the "Admiral Benbow," 
and you cannot imagine a house in such a state of 
smash ; the very clock had been thrown down by these 
fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and my- 
self ; and though nothing had actually been taken away 
except the captain's money-bag and a little silver from 
the till, I could see at once that we were ruined. Mr. 
Dance could make nothing of the scene. 

"They got the money, you say? Well, then, 
Hawkins, what in fortune were they after? More 
money, I suppose?" 

"No, sir; not money, I think," replied J. "In 
fact, sir, I believe I have the thing in my breast- 
pocket ; and, to tell you the truth, I should like to 
get it put in safety." 

"To be sure, boy; quite right," said he. "I'll 
take it, if you like." 

"I thought, perhaps, Dr. Livesey" 1 began. 

"Perfectly right," he interrupted, very cheerily, 
"perfectly right — a gentleman and a magistrate. 
And, now I come to think of it, I might as well ride 
round there myself and report to him or squire. 
Master Pew's dead, when all's done ; not that I regret 



44 TREASURE ISLAND. 

it, but he's dead, you see, and people will make it out 
against an officer of his Majesty's revenue, if make it 
out they can. Now, I'll tell you, Hawkins : if you like, 
I'll take you along." 

I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we walked 
back to the hamlet where the horses were. By the 
time I had told mother of my purpose they were all in 
the saddle. 

" Dogger/' said Mr. Dance, " you have a good 
horse; take up this lad behind you." 

As soon as I was mounted, holding on to Dogger's 
belt, the supervisor gave the word, and the party 
struck out at a bouncing trot on the road to Dr. 
Livesey's house. 



CHAPTER VI. 



We rode hard all the way, till we drew up before Dr. 
Livesey's door. The house was all dark to the 
front. 

Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock, and 
Dogger gave me a stirrup to descend by. The door was 
opened almost at once by the maid. 

" Is Dr. Livesey in ? " I asked. 

No, she said; he had come home in the afternoon, 
but had gone up to the Hall to dine and pass the 
evening with the squire. 

u So there we go, boys/' said Mr. Dance. 

This time, as the distance was short, I did not 
mount, but ran with Dogger's stirrup-leather to the 
lodge gates, and up the long, leafless, moonlit avenue 
to where the white line of the Hall buildings looked on 
either hand on great old gardens. Here Mr. Dance 
dismounted, and, taking me along with him, was ad- 
mitted at a word into the house. 

The servant led us down a matted passage, and 
showed us at the end into a great library, all lined with 
bookcases and busts upon the top of them, where the 



46 TREASURE ISLAXD. 

squire and Dr. Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either side 
of a bright fire. 

I had never seen the squire so near at hand. He 
was a tall man, over six feet high, and broad in pro- 
portion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, al* 
roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels. 
His eyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and 
this gave him a look of some temper, not bad, you 
would say, but quick and high. 

"Come in, Mr. Dance/'' says he, very stately and 
condescending. 

" Good evening, Dance/' says the doctor, with a nod. 
"And good evening to you, friend Jim. What good 
wind brings you here ? " 

The supervisor stood up straight and stiff, and 
told his story like a lesson; and you should have seen 
how the two gentlemen leaned forward and looked at 
each other, and forgot to smoke in their surprise and 
interest. When they heard how my mother went back 
to the inn, Dr. Livesey fairly slapped his thigh, and 
the squire cried ft Bravo ! " and broke his long pipe 
against the grate. Long before it was done, Mr. 
Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the squire's 
name) had got up from his seat, and was striding about 
the room, and the doctor, as if to hear the better, had 
taken off his powdered wig, and sat there, looking 
very strange indeed with his own close-cropped, black 
poll. 

At last Mr. Dance finished the story. 



THE CAPTAIN'S PAPERS. 47 

"Mr. Dance/' said the squire, "you are a very- 
noble fellow. And as for riding down that black, 
atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an act of virtue, sir, 
like stamping on a cockroach. This lad Hawkins is a 
trump, I perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell ? 
Mr. Dance must have some ale." 

( ' And so, Jim/ - ' said the doctor, l: you have the 
thing that they were after, have you ? " 

" Here it is, sir," said I, and gave him the oilskin 
packet. 

The doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers were 
itching to open it ; but, instead of doing that, he put it 
quietly in the pocket of his coat. 

" Squire," said he, " when Dance has had his ale he 
must, of course, be off on his Majesty's service ; but I 
mean to keep Jim Hawkins here to sleep at my house, 
and, with your permission, I propose we should have up 
the cold pie, and let him sup." 

" As you will, Livesey," said the squire; " Hawkins 
has earned better than cold pie." 

So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a 
side-table, and I made a hearty supper, for I was as 
hungry as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was further com- 
plimented, and at last dismissed. 

e< And now, squire," said the doctor. 

u And now, Livesey," said the squire, in the same 
breath. 

f< One at a time, one at a time," laughed Dr. Live- 
sey. ' ' You have heard of this Flint, I suppose ? 



48 TREASURE ISLAND. 

" Heard of him ! " cried the squire. " Heard of 
him, you say ! He was the bloodthirstiest buccaneer 
that sailed. Blackbeard was a child to Flint. The 
Spaniards were so prodigiously afraid of him, that, I 
tell you, sir, I was sometimes proud he was an English- 
man. I've seen his top-sails with these eyes, off 
Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rum-puncheon that 
I sailed with put back — put back, sir, into Port of 
Spain/' 

" Well, Fve heard of him myself, in England/' said 
the doctor. " But the point is, had he money ? " 

" Money ! M cried the squire. " Have you heard the 
story ? What were these villains after but money ? 
What do they care for but money ? For what would 
they risk their rascal carcases but money ? M 

"That we shall soon know/'' replied the doctor. 
" But you are so confoundedly hot-headed and exclama- 
tory that I cannot get a word in. What I want to 
know is this : Supposing that I have here in my pocket 
some clue to where Flint buried his treasure, will that 
treasure amount to much ? " 

"Amount, sir! " cried the squire. "It will amount 
to this : if we have the clue you talk about, I fit out 
a ship in Bristol dock, and take you and Hawkins 
here along, and I'll have that treasure if I search a 
year." 

" Very well," said the doctor. " Now, then, if Jim 
is agreeable, we'll open the packet;"" and he laid it 
before him on the table. 




The Captain's Papers. 
"The Squire and I were both peering over his shoulder.' — Page 49. 



THE CAPTAIN'S PAPERS. 49 

The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to 
get out his instrument-case, and cut the stitches with 
his medical scissors. It contained two things — a book 
and a sealed paper. 

u First of all we'll try the book," observed the 
doctor. 

The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder 
as he opened it, for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned me 
to come round from the side-table, where I had been 
eating, to enjoy the sport of the search. On the first 
page there were only some scraps of writing, such as 
a man with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or 
practice. •* One was the same as the tattoo mark, "Billy 
Bones his fancy;" then there was " Mr. W. Bones, 
mate." ' < No more rum." " Off Palm Key he got itt ; " 
and some other snatches, mostly single words and un- 
intelligible. I could not help wondering who it was 
that had "got itt," and what "itt" was that he got. 
A knife in his back as like as not. 

"Not much instruction there," said Dr. Livesey, as 
he passed on. 

The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a 
curious series of entries. There was a date at one end 
of the line and at the other a sum of money, as in 
common account-books; but instead of explanatory 
writing, only a varying number of crosses between 
the two. On the 12 th of June, 1745, for instance, 
a sum of seventy pounds had plainly become due to 
some one, and there was nothing but six crosses to 



50 TREASURE ISLAND. 

explain the cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the 
name of a place would be added, as " Oife Caraccas;" or 
a mere entry of latitude and longitude, as "62° 17' 20", 
19° 2' 40V 

The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the 
amount of the separate entries growing larger as time 
went on, and at the end a grand total had been made 
out after five or six wrong additions, and these words 
appended, ( ' Bones, his pile/' 

" I can't make head or tail of this/' said Dr. Livesey. 

" The thing is as clear as noonday/' cried the squire. 
"This is the black-hearted hound's account-book. These 
crosses stand for the names of ships or towns that they 
sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel's share, 
and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added 
something clearer. 'Offe Caraccas/ now; you see, here 
was some unhappy vessel boarded off that coast. God 
help the poor souls that manned her — coral long 
ago." 

" Right!" said the doctor. "See what it is to be 
a traveller. Right! And the amounts increase, you 
see, as he rose in rank." 

There was little else in the volume but a few bearings 
of places noted in the blank leaves towards the end, and 
a table for reducing French, English, and Spanish 
moneys to a common value. 

"Thrifty man!" cried the doctor. "He wasn't the 
one to be cheated." 

"And now," said the squire, "for the other." 



THE CAPTAIN'S PAPERS. 51 

The paper had been sealed in several places with a 
thimble by way of seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that 
I had found in the captain's pocket. The doctor opened 
the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of 
an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names 
of hills, and bays and inlets, and every particular that 
would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage 
upon its shores. It was about nine miles long 
and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat 
dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked 
harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked " The 
Spy-glass/'' There were several additions of a later 
date ; but, above all, three crosses of red ink — two on 
the north part of the island, one in the south-west, and, 
beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, 
neat hand, very different from the captain's tottery 
characters, these words: — <e Bulk of treasure here." 

Over on the back the same hand had written this 
further information : — 

" Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to the N". of 
N.KE. 

kt Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. 

" Ten feet. 

" The bar silver is in the north cache ; you can find it by the 
trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms south of the black crag 
with the face on it. 

" The arms are easy found, in the sand hill, K. point of north 
inlet cape, bearing E. and a quarter N. " J. F." 

That was all; but brief as it was, and, to me, in- 
e 2 



52 TREASURE ISLAND. 

comprehensible, it filled the squire and Dr. Livesey with 
delight. 

"Livesey/' said the squire, "you will give up this 
wretched practice at once. To-morrow I start for 
Bristol. In three weeks'* time — three weeks! — two 
weeks — ten days — we'll have the best ship, sir, and the 
choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as 
cabin-boy. You'll make a famous cabin-boy, Haw- 
kins. You, Livesey, are ship's doctor; I am admiral. 
We'll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We'll have 
favourable winds, a quick passage, and not the 
least difficulty in rinding the spot, and money to eat 
— to roll in — to play duck and drake with ever 
after." 

" Trelawney," said the doctor, " I'll go with you ; 
and, I'll go bail for it, so will Jim, and be a credit 
to the undertaking. There's only one man I'm afraid 
of." 

" And who's that ? " cried the squire. u Name the 
dog, sir ! " 

"You," replied the doctor; "for you cannot hold 
your tongue. We are not the only men who know of 
this paper. These fellows who attacked the inn to- 
night — bold, desperate blades, for sure — and the rest 
who stayed aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, 
not far off, are, one and all, through thick and thin, 
bound that they'll get that money. We must none of 
us go alone till we get to sea. Jim and I shall stick 
together in the meanwhile ; you'll take Joyce and 



THE CAPTAIN'S PAPERS. 53 

Hunter when you ride to Bristol,, and, from first to last, 
not one of us must breathe a word of what we've 
found." 

1 c Livesey/' returned the squire, ' ' you are always in 
the right of it. Fll be as silent as the grave."" 



Part II. 

THE SEA COOK. 



CHAPTER VII. 

I GO TO BRISTOL. 

It was longer than the squire imagined ere we were 
ready for the sea, and none of our first plans — not even 
Dr. Livesey's, of keeping me beside him — could be 
carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go to 
London for a physician to take charge of his practice ; 
the squire was hard at work at Bristol ; and I lived on 
at the Hall under the charge of old Redruth, the 
gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea-dreams and 
the most charming anticipations of strange islands and 
adventures. I brooded by the hour together over the 
map, all the details of which I well remembered. 
Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, I ap- 
proached that island in my fancy, from every possible 
direction ; I explored every acre of its surface ; I 
climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the 
Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful 
and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick 



I GO TO BRISTOL. 55 

with savages, with whom we fought ; sometimes full of 
dangerous animals that hunted us ; but in all my fancies 
nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our 
actual adventures. 

So the weeks passed on, till one fine day there came 
a letter addressed to Dr. Livesey, with this addition, 
"To be opened, in the case of his absence, by Tom 
Redruth, or young Hawkins/' Obeying this order, we 
found, or rather, I found — for the gamekeeper was 
a poor hand at reading anything but print — the follow- 
ing important news : — 

" Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 17 — . 

"Dear Livesey, — As I do not know whether you are at the 
Hall or still in London, I send this in double to both places. 

" The ship is bonght and fitted. She lies at anchor, ready for 
sea. You never imagined a sweeter schooner — a child might 
sail her — two hundred tons ; name, Hispaniola. 

" I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who has proved 
himself throughout the most surprising trump. The admirable 
fellow literally slaved in my interest, and so, I may say, did 
every one in Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port we 
sailed for — treasure, I mean." 

u Redruth/' said I. interrupting the letter, " Doctor 
Livesey will not like that. The squire has been talking, 
after all." 

11 Well, who's a better right ? " growled the game- 
keeper. " A pretty rum go if squire aint to talk for 
Doctor Livesey, I should think/' 

At that I gave up all attempt at commentary, and 
read straight on : — 

" Blandly himself found the Hispaniola, and by the most 



56 TREASURE ISLAND. 

admirable management got her for the merest trifle. There is a 
class of men in Bristol monstrously prejudiced against Blandly. 
They go the length of declaring that this honest creature would 
do anything for money, that the Sispaniola belonged to him, and 
that he sold it me absurdly high — the most transparent calumnies. 
None of them dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship. 

" So far there was not a hitch. The workpeople, to be sure — 
riggers and what not — were most annoyingly slow; but time 
cured that. It was the crew that troubled me. 

" I wished a round score of men — in case of natives, buccaneers, 
or the odious French — and I had the worry of the deuce itself to 
find so much as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke of 
fortune brought me the very man that I required. 

" I was standing on the dock, when, by the merest accident, I 
fell in talk with him. I found he was an old sailor, kept a 
public-house, knew all the sea-faring men in Bristol, had lost his 
health ashore, and wanted a good berth as cook to get to sea 
again. He had hobbled down there that morning, he said, to 
get a smell of the salt. 

" I was monstrously touched — so would you have been — and, 
out of pure pity, I engaged him on the spot to be ship's cook. 
Long John Silver, he is called, and has lost a leg ; but that I 
regarded as a recommendation, since he lost it in his country's 
service, under the immortal Hawke. He has no pension, 
Livesey. Imagine the abominable age we live in ! 

" Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook, but it was a 
crew I had discovered. Between Silver and myself we got 
together in a few days a company of the toughest old salts 
imaginable — not pretty to look at, but fellows, by their 
faces, of the most indomitable spirit. I declare we could fight 
a frigate. 

" Long John even got rid of two out of the six or seven I had 
already engaged. He showed me in a moment that they were 
just the sort of fresh water swabs we had to fear in an adventure 
of importance. 

" I am in the most magnificent health and spirits, eating like 
a bull, sleeping like a tree, yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I 
hear my old tarpaulir.s tramping round the capstan. Seaward 



I GO TO BRISTOL. 57 

ho ! Hang the treasure ! It's the glory of the sea that has 
turned my head. So now, Livesey, come post ; do not lose an 
hour, if you respect me. 

" Let young Hawkins go at once to see his mother, with Red- 
ruth for a guard ; and then both come full speed to Bristol 

" John Trelawney. 

"Postscript. — I did not tell you that Blandly, who, by the 
way, is to send a consort after us if we don't turn up by the end 
of August, had found an admirable fellow for sailing master — a 
stiff man, which I regret, but, in all other respects, a treasure;. 
Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate, a 
man named Arrow. I have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey ; so 
things shall go man- o- war fashion on board the good ship 
Hispaniola. 

" I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of substance ; I 
know of my own knowledge that he has a banker's account, 
which has never been overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage 
the inn ; and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old bachelors 
like you and I may be excused for guessing that it is the wife, 
quite as much as the health, that sends him back to roving. 

" J. T. 

" P.P.S. — Hawkins may stay one night with his mother. 

"J. T." 

You can fancy the excitement into which that letter 
put me. I was half beside myself with glee ; and if 
ever I despised a man, it was old Tom Redruth, who 
could do nothing 1 but grumble and lament. Any of the 
under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed places 
with him ; but suchi was not the squire's pleasure, and 
the squire's pleasure was like law among them all. 
Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as 
eveu to grumble. 



58 TREASUEE ISLAND. 

The next morning he and I set out on foot for the 
<c Admiral Benbow/' and there I found* my mother in 
good health and spirits. The captain, who had so long 
been a cause m so much discomfort, was gone where 
the wicked cease from troubling. The squire had had 
everything repaired, and the public rooms ^and the sign 
repainted, and had added some furniture — above all a 
beautiful arm-chair for mother in the bar. He had 
found her a boy as an apprentice also., so that she should 
not want help while I was gone. 

It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the 
first time, my situation. I had thought up to that 
moment of the adventures before me, not at all of the 
home that I was leaving; and now, at sight of this 
clumsy stranger, who was to stay here in my place 
beside my mother, I had my first attack of tears. I am 
afraid I led that boy a dog's life ; for as he was new to 
the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting him 
right and putting him down, and I was not slow to 
profit by them. 

The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, 
Redruth and I were afoot again, and on the road. I 
said good-bye to mother and the cove where I had lived 
since I was born, and the dear old "Admiral Benbow"" — 
since he was repainted, no longer quite so dear. One of 
my last thoughfe was of the captain, who had so often 
strode along the beach with his cocked hat, his sal ire- 
cut cheek, and his old brass telescope. Kext moment we 
had turned the corner, and my home was out of sight. 



I GO TO BRISTOL. 59 

The mail picked us up about dusk at the " Royal 
George " on the heath. I was wedged in between Red- 
ruth and a stout old gentleman, and in spite of the swift 
motion and the cold night air, I mus^fhave dozed a 
great deal from the very first, and then slept like a log 
up hill and down dale through stage after stage; for 
when I was awakened, at last, it was by a punch in the 
ribs, and I opened my eyes, to find that we were 
standing still before a large building in a city street, 
and that the day had already broken a long time. 

" Where are we ? " I asked. 

" Bristol/' said Tom. " Get down/' 

Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at an 
inn far down the docks, to superintend the work upon 
the schooner. Thither we bad now to walk, and our 
way, to my great delight, lay along the quays and 
beside the great multitude of ships of all sizes and 
rigs and nations. In one, sailors were singing at their 
work ; in another, there were men aloft, high over my 
head, hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than a 
spider's. Though I had lived by the shore all my life, 
I seemed never to have been near the sea till then. 
The smell of tar and salt was something new. I 
saw the most wonderful figureheads, that had all been 
far over the ocean. I saw, besides, many old sailors, 
with rings in their ears, and whiskers curled in ringlets, 
and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, clumsy sea- 
walk ; and if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I 
could not have been more delighted. 



60 TREASURE ISLAND. 

And I was going to sea myself ; to sea in a schooner, 
with a piping boatswain, and pig- tailed singing seamen ; 
to sea, bound for an unknown island, and to seek for 
buried treasures ! 

While I was still in this delightful dream, we 
came suddenly in front of a large inn, and met Squire 
Trelawney, all dressed out like a sea-officer, in stout 
blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on his 
face, and a capital imitation of a sailor's walk. 

" Here you are," he cried, " and the doctor came 
last night from London. Bravo ! the ship's company 
complete ! " 

u Oh, sir/' cried I, " when do we sail ?" 

" Sail 1 " says he. " We sail to-morrow 1 ** 



CHAPTER VIII. 



When I had done breakfasting the squire gave me a 
note addressed to John Silver, at the sign of the u Spy- 
glass/' and told me I should easily find the place by 
following the line of the docks, and keeping a bright 
look-out for a little tavern with a large brass telescope 
for sign. I set off:, overjoyed at this opportunity to 
see some more of the ships and seamen, and picked my 
way among a great crowd of people and carts and bales, 
for the dock was now at its busiest, until I found the 
tavern in question. 

It was a bright enough little place of entertainment. 
The sign was newly painted ; the windows had neat red 
curtains; the floor was cleanly sanded. There was a 
street on each side, and an open door on both, which 
made the large, low room pretty clear to see in, in spite 
of clouds of tobacco smoke. 

The customers were mostly seafaring men; and 
they talked so loudly that I hung at the door, almost 
afraid to enter. 

As I was waiting, a man came out of a side room, 
and, at a glance, I was sure he must be Long John. 



62 TREASURE ISLAND. 

His left leg was cut off close by the hip, and under the 
/eft shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed 
with wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a 
bird. He was very tall and strong, with a face as big 
as a ham — plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling. 
Indeed, he seemed in the most cheerful spirits, whistling 
as he moved about among the tables, with a merry word 
or a slap on the shoulder for the more favoured of his 
guests. 

Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first men- 
tion of Long John in Squire Trelawney's letter, I had 
taken a fear in my mind that he might prove to be the 
very one-legged sailor whom I had watched for so long 
at the old " Benbow.'" But one look at the man before 
me was enough. I had seen the captain, and Black Hog, 
and the blind man Pew, and I thought I knew what a 
buccaneer was like — a very different creature, according 
to me, from this clean and pleasant-tempered landlord. 

I plucked up courage at once, crossed the threshold, 
and walked right up to the man where he stood, propped 
on his crutch, talking to a customer. 

"Mr. Silver, sir ? " I asked, holding out the note. 

" Yes, my lad/' said he ; " such is my name, to be 
sure. And who may you be ? 3i And then as he saw 
the squire's letter, he seemed to me to give something 
almost like a start. 

" Oh ! " said he, quite loud, and offering his hand, 
" I see. You are our new cabin-boy ; pleased I am to 
see you." 



63 



And he took my hand in his large firm grasp. 

Just then one of the customers at the far side rose 
suddenly and made for the door. It was close by him, 
and he was out in the street in a moment. But his 
hurry had attracted my notice, and I recognised him at 
glance. It was the tallow-faced man, wanting two 
finders, who had come first to the " Admiral Benbow." 

" Oh," I cried, " stop him ! it's Black Dog ! " 

" I don't care two coppers who he is/' cried Silver. 
" But he hasn't paid his score. Harry, run and catch 
him." 

One of the others who was nearest the door leaped 
up, and started in pursuit. 

"If he were Admiral Hawke he shall pay his 
score/' cried Silver ; and then, relinquishing my hand — 
" Who did you say he was ? " he asked. " Black 
what?" 

" Dog, sir," said I. " Has Mr. Trelawney not told 
you of the buccaneers ? He was one of them." 

" So ? " cried Silver. " In my house ! Ben, run 
and help Harry. One of those swabs, was he? Was 
that you drinking with him, Morgan ? Step up here." 
"The man whom he called Morgan — an old, grey- 
haired, mahogany-faced sailor — came forward pretty 
sheepishly, rolling his quid. 

"Now, Morgan," said Long John, very sternly; 
"you never clapped your eyes on that Black — Black 
Dog before, did you, now ? " 

" Not I, sir," said Morgan, with a salute. 



64 TREASURE ISLAND. 

tc You didn't know his name, did you ? ' 
"No, sir." 

"By the powers, Tom Morgan, it's as good for 
you ! " exclaimed the landlord. " If you had been 
mixed up with the like of that, you would never have 
put another foot in my house, you may lay to that. 
And what was he saying to you ? " 

" I don't rightly know, sir/' answered Morgan. 

"Do v you call that a head on your shoulders, or 
a blessed dead-eye ? " cried Long John. " Don't 
rightly know, don't you ! Perhaps you don't happen 
to rightly know who you was speaking to, perhaps? 
Come, now, what was he jawing — v'yages, cap'ns, 
ships ? Pipe up ! What was it ? " 

"We was a-talkin' of keel-hauling," answered 
Morgan. 

" Keel-hauling, was you ? and a mighty suitable 
thing, too, and you may lay to that. Get back to your 
place for a lubber, Tom." 

And then, as Morgan rolled back to his seat, Silver 
added to me in a confidential whisper, that was very 
flattering, as I thought : — 

" He's quite an honest man, Tom Morgan, on'y 
stupid. And now," he ran on again, aloud, " let's see 
— Black Dog? No, I don't know the name, not I. 
Yet I kind of think I've — yes, I've seen the swab. He 
used to come here with a blind beggar, he used." 

" That he did, you may be sure," said I. " I knew 
that blind man, too. His name was Pew." 



AT THE SIGN OF THE " SPY-GLASS." 65 

" It was ! " cried Silver, now quite excited. " Pew ! 
That were his name for certain. Ah, he looked a 
shark, he did ! If we run down this Black Dog, now, 
there'll be news for Cap'n Trelawney ! Ben's a good 
runner ; few seamen ran better than Ben. He should 
run him down, hand over hand, by the powers ! 
He talked o' keel-hauling, did he? Til keel-haul 
him ! " 

All the time he was jerking out these phrases he 
was stumping up and down the tavern on his crutch, 
slapping tables with his hand, and giving such a show 
of excitement as would have convinced an Old Bailey 
judge or a Bow Street runner. My suspicions had 
been thoroughly re-awakened on finding Black Dog at 
the " Spy-glass," and I watched the cook narrowly. But 
he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever for me, 
and by the time the two men had come back out of 
breath, and confessed that they had lost the track in a 
crowd, and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone 
bail for the innocence of Long John Silver. 

1 ' See here, now, Hawkins/'' said he, " here's a 
blessed hard thing on a man like me, now, aint it ? 
There's Cap'n Trelawney — what's he to think? Here 
I have this confounded son of a Dutchman sitting in my 
own house, drinking of my own rum ! Here you comes 
and tells me of it plain ; and here I let him give us all 
the slip before my blessed dead-lights ! Now, Hawkins, 
you do me justice with the cap'n. You're a lad, you 
are, but you're as smart as paint. I see that when you 

F 



66 TREASURE ISLAND. 

first came in. Now, here it is : What could I do, with 
this old timber I hobble on ? When I was an A B 
master mariner I'd have come up alongside of him, hand 
over hand, and broached him to in a brace of old shakes, 
I would ; but now " 

And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and his jaw 
dropped as though he had remembered something. 

" The score ! " he burst out. " Three goes o' rum ! 
Why, shiver my timbers, if I hadn't forgotten my 
score ! " 

And, falling on a bench, he laughed until the tears 
ran down his cheeks. I could not help joining ; and we 
laughed together, peal after peal, until the tavern rang 
again. ^^ 

" Why, what a precious old sea-calf I am ! " he 
said, at last, wiping his cheeks. (C You and me should 
get on well, Hawkins, for I'll take my davy I should be 
rated ship's boy. But, come, now, stand by to go about. 
This won't do. Dooty is dooty, messmates. I'll put on 
my old cocked hat, and step along of you to Cap'n Tre- 
lawney, and report this here affair. For, mind you, it's 
serious, young Hawkins; and neither you nor me's 
come out of it with what I should make so bold as to 
call credit. Nor you neither, says you ; not smart — 
none of the pair of us smart. But dash my buttons ! 
that was a good 'un about my score." 

And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, 
that though I did not see the joke as he did, I was again 
obliged to join him in his mirth. 



AT THE SIGN OF THE " SPY-GLA.SS." 67 

On our ljfctl^walk along tlie quays, he made himself 
the mosfr interesting companion, telling me about the 
different ships that we passed by, their rig, tonnage, 
and nationality, explaining the work that was going 
forward — how one was discharging, another taking in 
cargo, and a third making ready for sea ; and every now 
and then telling me some little anecdote of ships or 
seamen, or repeating a nautical phrase till I had learned 
it perfectly. I began to see that here was one of the 
best of possible shipmates. 

When we got to the inn, the squire and Dr. Livesey 
were seated together, finishing a quart of ale with a 
toast in it, before they should go aboard the schooner on 
La visit of inspection. 

Long John told the story from first to last, with a 
great deal of spirit and the most perfect truth. 
" That was how it were, now, weren't it, Hawkins ? " 
he would say, now and again, and I could always bear 
him entirely out. 

The two gentlemen regretted that Black Dog had 
got away ; but we all agreed there was nothing to be 
done, and after he had been complimented, Long John 
took up his crutch and departed. 

"All hands aboard by four this afternoon," shouted 
the squire, after him. 

" Ay, ay, sir," cried the cook, in the passage. 

"Well, squire," said Dr. Livesey, "I don't put much 
faith in your discoveries, as a general thing ; but I will 
say this, John Silver suits me." 
F 2 



68 TREASURE ISLAND. 

" The man's a perfect tramp/' declared the squire. 

" And now/' added the doctor, u Jim may come on 
board with us, may he not ? " 

" To be sure he may/' says squire. ' ' Take your hat, 
Hawkins, and we'll see the ship." 



CHAPTER IX. 

POWDER AND ATtMS. 

The Hispaniola lay some way out, and we went under 
the figureheads and round the sterns of many other 
ships, and their cables sometimes grated underneath our 
keel, and sometimes swung above us. At last, however, 
we got alongside, and were met and saluted as we 
stepped aboard by the mate, Mr. Arrow, a brown old 
sailor, with earrings in his ears and a squint. He and 
the squire were very thick and friendly, but I soon 
observed that things were not the same between Mr. 
Trelawney and the captain. 

This last was a sharp-looking man, who seemed 
angry with everything on board, and was soon to tell 
us why, for we had hardly got down into the cabin 
when a sailor followed us. 

" Captain Smollett, sir, axing to speak with you," 
said he. 

"I am always at the captain's orders. Show him 
in/'' said the squire. 

The captain, who was close behind his messenger, 
entered at once, and shut the door behind him. 



70 TREASURE ISLAND. 

"Well, Captain Smollett, what have you to say? 
All well, I hope ; all shipshape and seaworthy ? " 

"Well, sir/'' said the captain, " better speak plain, 
I believe, even at the risk of oft'ence. I don't like this 
cruise; I don't like the men; and I don't like my 
officer. That's short and sweet." 

" Perhaps, sir, }^ou don't like the ship ? " inquired 
the squire, very angry, as I could see. 

"I can't speak as to that, sir, not having seen her 
tried," said the captain. "She seems a clever craft; 
more I can't say." 

<c Possibly, sir, you may not like your employer, 
either?" says the squire. 

But here Dr. Livesey cut in. 

" Stay a bit," said he, " stay a bit. No use of such 
questions as that but to produce ill-feeling. The captain 
has said too much or he has said too little, and I'm 
bound to say that I require an explanation of his words. 
You don't, you say, like this cruise. Now, why ? " 

" I was engaged, sir, on what we call sealed orders, 

to sail this ship for that gentleman where he should 

bid me," said the captain. " So far so good. But now 

• I find that every man before the mast knows more than 

I do. I don't call that fair, now, do you ? " 

"No," said Dr. Livesey, "I don't." 

" Next," said the captain, " I learn we are going 
after treasure — hear it from my own hands, mind you. 
Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don't like treasure 
voyages on any account ; and I don't like them, above 



POWDER AND ARMS. 



71 



all, when they are secret, and when (begging your 
pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has been told to the 

parrot/' 

" Silver's parrot?" asked the squire. 
"it's a way of speaking/' said the captain. 
" Blabbed, I mean. It's my belief neither of you 
gentlemen know what you are about; but I'll tell 
you my way of it — life or death, and a close run." 

"That is all clear, and, 1 daresay, true enough/' 
replied Dr. Livesey. " We take the risk ; but we 
are not so ignorant as you believe us. Next, you 
say you don't like the erew. Are they not good sea- 
men ? " 

"I don't like them, sir," returned Captain Smollett, 
u And I think L should have had the choosing of my 
own hands, if you go to that." 

"Perhaps you should," replied the doetor. "My 
friend should, perhaps, have taken you along with him; 
but the slight, if there be one, was unintentional. And 
you don't like Mr. Arrow?" 

"I don't, sir. 1 believe he's a good seaman; but 
he's too free with the crew to be a good officer. A 
mate should keep himself to himself— shouldn't drink 1 
with the men before the mast ! " 

" Do you mean lie drinks? " cried the squire, 
"No, sir," replied the captain j "only that he's too 
familiar." 

"Well, now, and the short and long o^ it, captain?" 
:ed the doctor. " Tell us what you want," 



72 TREASURE ISLAND. 

" Well,, gentlemen, are yon determined to go on this 
cruise t 

" Like iron," answered the squire. 

" Very good/' said the captain. " Then, as you've 
heard me very patiently, saying things that I could not 
prove, hear me a few words more. They are putting 
the powder and the arms in the fore hold. Now, you 
have a good place under the cabin ; why not put them 
there ? — first point. Then you are bringing four ' of 
your own people with you, and they tell me some of 
them are to be berthed forward. Why. not give them 
the berths here beside the cabin ? — second point/' 

"Any more?"" asked Mr. Trelawney. 

"One more/'' said the captain. " There's been too 
much blabbing already." 

"Far too much/' agreed the doctor. 

"I'll tell you what I've heard myself," continued 
Captain Smollett: "that you have a map of an island; 
that there's crosses on the map to show where treasure 

is; and that the island lies " And then he named 

the latitude and longitude exactly. 

" I never told that," cried the squire, " to a soul !" 

"The hands know it, sir," returned the captain. 

"Livesey, that must have been you or Hawkins," 
cried the squire. 

"It doesn't much matter who it was," replied the 
doctor. And I could see that neither he nor the captain 
paid much regard to Mr. Trelawney's protestations. 
Neither did I, to be sure, he was so loose a talker; yet 



POWDER, AND ARMS. 73 

in this case I believe he was really right, and that 
nobody had told the situation of the island. 

"Well, gentlemen/' continued the captain, "I don't 
know who has this map; but I make it a point, it 
shall be kept secret even from me and Mr. Arrow. 
Otherwise I would ask you to let me resign." 

"I see," said the doctor. "You wish us to keep 
this matter dark, and to make a garrison of the stern 
part of the ship, manned with my friend's own people, 
and provided with all the arms and powder on board. 
In other words, you fear a mutiny." 

"Sir," said Captain Smollett, "with no intention 
to take offence, I deny your right to put words into 
my mouth. No captain, sir, would be justified in 
going to sea at all if he had ground enough to say 
that. As for Mr. Arrow, I believe him thoroughly 
honest; some of the men are the same; all may be 
for what I know. But I am responsible for the 
ship's safety and the life of every man Jack aboard 
of her. I see things going, as I think, not quite right. 
And I ask you to take certain precautions, or let me 
resign my berth. And that's all." 

"Captain Smollett," began the doctor, with a smile, 
"did ever you hear the fable of the mountain and the 
mouse? You'll excuse me, I daresay, but you remind 
me of that fable. When you came in here I'll stake 
my wig you meant more than this." 

" Doctor," said the captain, " you are smart. 
When I came in here I meant to get discharged. 



74 TREASURE ISLAND. 

I had no thought that Mr. Trelawney would hear a 
word." 

"No more I would/' cried the squire. "Had 
Livesey not been here I should have seen you to 
the deuce. As it is, I have heard you. I will do 
as you desire; but I think the worse of you."" 

"That's as you please, sir/' said the captain. 
"You'll find I do my duty/' 

And with that he took his leave. 

"Trelawney/' said the doctor, "contrary to all 
my notions, I believe you have managed to get two 
honest men on board with you — that man and John 
Silver/' 

"Silver, if you like," cried the squire; "but as for 
that intolerable humbug, I declare I think his conduct 
unmanly, unsailorly, and downright un-English." 

"Well," says the doctor, "we shall see." 

When we came on deck, the men had begun already 
to take out the arms and powder, yo-ho-ing at their 
work, while the captain and Mr. Arrow stood by 
superintending. 

The new arrangement was quite to my liking. The 
whole schooner had been overhauled; six berths had 
been made astern, out of what had been the after-part 
of the main hold ; and this set of cabins was only joined 
to the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage on 
the port side. It had been originally meant that the 
captain, Mr. Arrow, Hunter, Joyce, the doctor, and 
the squire, were to occupy these six berths. New, 



POWDER AND ARMS. 75 

Redruth and I were to get two of them, and Mr. Arrow 
and the captain were to sleep on deck in the companion, 
which had been enlarged on each side till you might 
almost have called it a round-house. Very low it was 
still, of course; but there was room to swing two 
hammocks, and even the mate seemed pleased with the 
arrangement. Even he, perhaps, had been doubtful as 
to the crew, but that is only guess; for, as you shall 
hear, we had not long the benefit of his opinion. 

We were all hard at work, changing the powder and 
the berths, when the last man or two, and Long John 
along with them, came off in a shore-boat. 

The cook came up the side like a monkey for clever- 
ness, and, as soon as he saw what was doing, " So ho, 
mates ! " says he, " what's this ? " 

"We're a-changing of the powder, Jack/' answers 
one. 

" Why, by the powers/' cried Long John, " if we 
do, we'll miss the morning tide ! " 

" My orders 1 " said the captain shortly. " You 
may go below, my man. Hands will want supper." 

" Ay, ay, sir," answered the cook ; and, touching 
his forelock, he disappeared at once in the direction of 
his galley. 

" That's a good man, captain," said the doctor. 

( ' Very likely sir," replied Captain Smollett. " Easy 
with that, men — easy," he ran on, to the fellows who 
were shifting the powder ; and then suddenly observing 
me examining the swivel we carried amidships, a long 



76 TREASURE ISLAND. 

brass nine — " Here, yon ship's hoy/' he cried, " ont o* 
that ! Off with yon to the cook and get some work." 

And then as I was hurrying off I heard him say, 
quite loudly, to the doctor : — 

" Fll have no favourites on my ship."" 

I assure you I was quite of the squire's way of 
thinking, and hated the captain deeply. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE VOYAGE. 

All that night we were in a great bustle getting things 
stowed in their place, and boatfuls of the squire's 
friends, Mr. Blandly and the like, coming off to wish 
him a good voyage and a safe return. We never had a 
night at the " Admiral Benbow " when I had half the 
work ; and I was dog-tired when, a little before dawn, 
the boatswain sounded his pipe, and the crew began to 
man the capstan-bars. I might have been twice as 
weary, yet I would not have left the deck ; all was so 
new and interesting to me — the brief commands, the 
shrill note of the whistle, the men bustling to their 
places in the glimmer of the ship's lanterns. 

" Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave/' cried one voice. 

" The old one/'' cried another. 

" Ay, ay, mates/' said Long John, who was stand- 
ing by, with his crutch under his arm, and at once 
broke out in the air and words I knew so well— 

" Fifteen men on the dead man's chest "— 

And then the whole crew bore chorus :— 

" Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of ram ! w 



78 TREASURE ISLAND. 

And at the third " ho \" drove the bars before them with 
a will. 

Even at that exciting 1 moment it carried me back to 
the old "Admiral Benbow" in a second ; and I seemed 
to hear the voice of the captain piping in the chorus. 
But soon the anchor was short up ; soon it was hanging 
dripping at the bows ; soon the sails began to draw, and 
the land and shipping to flit by on either side ; and 
before I could lie down to snatch an hour of slumber 
the Hispa?iiola had begun her voyage to the Isle of 
Treasure. 

I am not going to relate that voyage in detail. It 
was fairly prosperous. The ship proved to be a good 
ship, the crew were capable seamen, and the captain 
thoroughly understood his business. But before we 
came the length of Treasure Island, two or three things 
had happened which require to be known. 

Mr. Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than 
the captain had feared. He had no command among 
the men, and people did what they pleased with him. 
But that was by no means the worst of -it ; for after a 
day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy 
eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue, and other marks of 
drunkenness. Time after time he was ordered below in 
disgrace. Sometimes he fell and cut himself: some- 
times he lay all day long in his little bunk at one 
side of the companion; sometimes for a day or two he 
would be almost sober and attend to his work at least 
passably. 



THE VOYAGE. 79 

In the meantime, we could never make out where he 
got the drink. That was the ship's mystery. Watch 
him as we pleased, we could do nothing to solve it ; and 
when we asked him to his face, he would only laugh, if 
he were drunk, and if he were sober, deny solemnly that 
he ever tasted anything but water. 

He was not only useless as an officer, and a bad 
influence amongst the men, but it was plain that at this 
rate he must soon kill himself outright ; so nobody was 
much surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark night, 
with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no 
more. 

" Overboard ! " said the captain. " Well, gentlemen, 
that saves the trouble of putting him in irons/'' 

But there we were, without a mate ; and it was 
necessary, of course, to advance one of the men. The 
boatswain, Job Anderson, was the likeliest man aboard, 
and, though he kept his old title, he served in a way as 
mate. Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea, and his 
knowledge made him very useful, for he often took a 
watch himself in easy weather. And the coxswain, 
Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced sea- 
man, who could be trusted at a pinch with almost any- 
thing. 

He was a great confidant of Long John Silver, and 
so the mention of his name leads me on to speak of our 
ship's cook, Barbecue, as the men called him. 

Aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard 
round his neck, to have both hands as free as possible. 



80 TREASURE ISLAND. 

It was something to see him wedge the foot of the 
eruteh against a bulkhead, and, propped against it, 
yielding to every movement of the ship, get on with 
his cooking like some one safe ashore. Still more 
strange was it to see him in the heaviest of weather 
cross the deck. He had a line or two rigged tip to 
help him across the widest spaces — Long John's ear- 
rings, they were called; and he would hand himself 
from one place to another, now using the crutch, now 
trailing it alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as 
another man could walk. Yet some of the men who 
had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see 
him so reduced. 

" He's no common man, Barbecue/' said the cox- 
swain to me. " He had good schooling in his young 
days, and can speak like a book when so minded ; and 
brave — a lion's nothing alongside of Long John ! I seen 
him grapple four, and knock their heads together — him 
unarmed." 

All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had 
a way of talking to each, and doing everybody some 
particular service. To me he was unweariedly kind ; and 
always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept 
as clean as a new pin ; the dishes hanging up burnished, 
and his parrot in a cage in one corner. 

" Come away, Hawkins/' he would say ; " come 
and have a yarn with John. Nobody more welcome 
than yourself, my son. Sit you down and hear the 
news. Here's Cap'n Flint — I calls my parrot Cap'n 



THE VOYAGE. 81 

Flint, after the famous buccaneer — here's Cap'n 
Flint predicting success to our v'yage. Wasn't you, 
cap n f 

And the parrot would say, with great rapidity, 
" Pieces of eight ! pieces of eight ! pieces of eight ! " 
till you wondered that it was not out of breath, or till 
John threw his handkerchief over the cage. 

" Now, that bird," he would say, " is, may be, two 
hundred years old, Hawkins — they lives for ever mostly ; 
and if anybody's seen more wickedness, it must be the 
devil himself. She's sailed with England, the great 
Cap'n England, the pirate. She's been at Madagascar, 
and at Malabar, and Surinam, and Providence, and 
Portobello. She was at the fishing up of the wrecked 
plate ships. It's there she learned c Pieces of eight/ 
and little wonder ; three hundred and fifty thousand of 
'em, Hawkins ! She was at the boarding of the Viceroy 
of the Indies out of Goa, she was ; and to look at her 
you would think she was a babby. But you smelt 
powder — didn't you, cap'n ? " 

" Stand by to go about," the parrot would scream. 

"Ah, she's a handsome craft, she is," the cook 
would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then 
the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight 
on, passing belief, for wickedness. tc There," John 
would add, "you can't touch pitch and not be mucked, 
lad. Here's this poor old innocent bird o' mine swearing 
blue fire, and none the wiser, you may lay to that. She 
would swear the same, in a manner of speaking, before 

G 



82 TREASURE ISLAND. 

chaplain/' And John would touch his forelock with a 
solemn way he had, that made me think he was the best 
of men. 

In the meantime, the squire and Captain Smollett 
were still on pretty distant terms with one another. The 
squire made no bones about the matter; he despised the 
captain. The captain, on his part, never spoke but when 
he was spoken to, and then sharp and short and dry, and 
not a word wasted. He owned, when driven into a 
corner, that he seemed to have been wrong about the 
crew, that some of them were as brisk as he wanted 
to see, and all had behaved fairly well. As for the 
ship, he had taken a downright fancy to her. " She'll 
lie a point nearer the wind than a man has a right 
to expect of his own married wife, sir. But/' he 
would add, "all I say is we're not home again, and 
I don't like the cruise." 

The squire, at this, would turn away and march 
up and down the deck, chin in air. 

"A trifle more of that man/' he would say, "and 
I shall explode." 

We had some heavy weather, which only proved 
the qualities of the Rispaniola. Every man on board 
seemed well content, and they must have been hard 
to please if they had been otherwise; for it is my beliei 
there was never a ship's company so spoiled since Noah 
put to sea. Double grog was going on the least excuse; 
there was duff on odd days, as, for instance, if the squire 
heard it was any man's birthday; and always a barrel of 



THE VOYAGE. 83 

apples standing broached in the waist, for any one to 
help himself that had a fancy. 

"Never knew good come of it yet/' the captain said 
to Dr. Livesey. "Spoil focVle hands, make devils. 
That's my belief." 

But good did come of the apple barrel, as you shall 
hear; for if it had not been for that, we should have had 
no note of warning, and might all have perished by the 
hand of treachery. 

This was how it came about. 

We had run up the trades to get the wind of 
the island we were after — I am not allowed to be 
more plain — and now we were running down for it 
with a bright look-out day and night. It was about 
the last day of our outward voyage, by the largest 
computation; some time that night, or, at latest, before 
noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. 
We were heading S.S.W., and had a steady breeze abeam 
and a quiet sea. The Hitpaniola rolled steadily, dipping 
her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray. All 
was drawing alow and aloft; every one was in the 
bravest spirits, because we were now so near an end of 
the first part of our adventure. 

Now, just after sundown, when all my work was 
over, and I was on my way to my berth, it occurred 
to me that I should like an apple. I ran on deck. The 
watch was all forward looking' out for the island. 
The man at the helm was watching the luff of the sail, 
and whistling away gently to himself; and that was 
g 2 



84 TEEASUEE ISLAND. 

the only sound excepting the swish of the sea against 
the bows and around the sides of the ship. 

In I got bodily into the apple barrel, and found 
there was scarce an apple left ; but, sitting down there 
in the dark, what with the sound of the waters and the 
rocking movement of the ship, I had either fallen asleep, 
or was on the point of doing so, when a heavy man sat 
down with rather a clash close by. The barrel shook 
as he leaned his shoulders against it, and I was just 
about to jump up when the man began to speak. It 
was Silver's voice, and, before I had heard a dozen 
words, I would not have shown myself for all the 
world, but lay there, trembling and listening, in the 
extreme of fear and curiosity ; for from these dozen words 
I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard 
depended upon me alone. 



CHAPTER XL 

WHAT I HEARD IN THE APPLE BARREL. 

" No, not I," said Silver. " Flint was cap'n ; I was 
quartermaster, along of my timber leg. The same 
broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost bis deadlights. It 
was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me — out of 
college and all — Latin by the bucket, and what not; 
but he was hanged like a dog, and sun-dried like the 
rest, at Corso Castle. That was Roberts' men, that was, 
and corned of changing names to their ships — Royal 
Fortune and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, 
so let her stay, I says. So it was with the Cassandra, 
as brought us all safe home from Malabar, after England 
took the Viceroy of the Indies ; so it was with the old 
Walrus, Flint's old ship, as I've seen a-muck with the 
red blood and fit to sink with gold." 

u Ah ! " cried another voice, that of the youngest 
hand on board, and evidently full of admiration, "he 
was the flower of the flock, was Flint ! " 

11 Davis was a man, too, by all accounts/' said 
Silver. " I never sailed along of him ; first with 
England, then with Flint, that's my story ; and now 
here on my own account, in a manner of speaking. I laid 






86 TREASURE ISLAXD. 

by nine hundred safe, from England, and two thousand 
after Flint. That aint bad for a man before the mast — 
all safe in bank. ' Tain't earning now, it's saving does 
it, you may lay to that. Where's all England's men 
now ? I dunno. "Where's Flint's ? Why, most on 
'em aboard here, and glad to get the duff — been begging 
before that, some on 'em. Old Pew, as had lost his 
sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve 
hundred pound in a year, like a lord in Parliament. 
Where is he now? Well, he's dead now and under 
hatches ; but for two year before that, shiver my timbers ! 
the man was starving. He begged, and he stole, and 
he cut throats, and starved at that, by the powers ! n 

" Well, it aint much use, after all," said the young 
seaman. 

" ' Tain't much use for fools, you may lay to it — 
that, nor nothing," cried Silver. " But now, .you look 
here : you're young, you are, but you're as smart as 
paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you, and I'll 
talk to you like a man." f 

You. may imagine how I felt when I heard this 
abominable old rogue addressing another in the very 
same words of flattery as he had used to myself. I 
think, if I had been able, that I would have killed- him 
through the barrel. Meantime, he ran on, little sup- 
posing he was overheard. 

" Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives 
rough, and they risk swinging, but they eat and drink 
like fighting-cocks, and when a cruise is done, why, it's 



WHAT I HEARD IN THE APPLE BARREL. 87 

hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in 
their pockets. Now, the most goes for rurn and a good 
fling, and to sea again in their shirts. But that's not 
the course 1 lay. I puts it all away, some here, some 
there, and none too much anywheres, by reason of 
suspicion. I'm fifty, mark you; once back from this 
cruise, I set up gentleman in earnest. Time enough, 
too, says you. Ah, but I've lived easy in the meantime; 
never denied myself o' nothing heart desires, and slep' 
soft and ate dainty all my days, but when at sea. 
And how did I begin ? Before the mast, like 
you!" 

" Well," said the other, " but all the other money's 
gone now, aint it? You daren't show face in Bristol 
after this." 

u Why,- where might you suppose it was ? " asked 
Silver, derisively. 

" At Bristol, in banks and places," answered his 
companion. 

11 It were," said the cook ; " it were when we 
weighed anchor. But my old missis has it all by now. 
And the ' Spy-glass ' is sold, lease and goodwill and 
rigging ; and the old girl's off to meet me. I would 
tell you where, for I trust you ; but it 'ud make 
jealousy among the mates." 

" And can you trust your missis ? " asked the 
other. 

" Gentlemen of fortune," returned the cook, 
" usually trusts little among themselves, and right they 



88 TREASURE ISLAND. 

are, you may lay to it. But I have a way with me, I 
have. When a mate brings a. slip on his cable — one as 
knows me, I mean — it won't be in the same world with 
old John. There was some that was feared of Pew, and 
some that was feared of Flint ; but Flint his own self 
was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They 
was the roughest 'crew afloat, was Flint's; the devil 
himself would have been feared to go to sea with them. 
Well, now, I tell you, Fm not a boasting man, and you 
seen yourself how easy I keep company ; but when I was 
quartermaster, lambs wasn't the word for Flint's old 
buccaneers. Ah, you may be sure of yourself in old 
John's ship." 

" Well, I tell you now," replied the lad, " I didn't 
half a quarter like the job till I had this talk with you, 
John ; but there's my hand on it now." 

u And a brave lad you were, and smart, too," 
answered Silver, shaking hands so heartily that all 
the barrel shook, ' ' and a finer figure head for a gentle- 
man of fortune I never clapped my eyes on." 

By this time I had begun to understand the mean- 
ing of their terms. By a " gentleman of fortune " they 
plainly meant neither more nor less than a common 
pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was 
the last act in the corruption of one of the honest 
hands — perhaps of the last one left aboard. But on 
this point I was soon to be relieved, for Silver giving 
a little whistle, a third man strolled up and sa.t down by 
the party. 



WHAT I HEARD IN THE APPLE BARREL. 89 

" Dick's square/' said Silver. 

"Oh, I know'd Dick was square/' returned the 
voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands. " He's no fool, 
is Dick." And he turned his quid and spat. " But, 
look here," he went on, " here's what I want to know, 
Barhecue : how long are we a-going to stand off and on 
like a blessed bumboat? I've had a'most enough o' 
Cap'n Smollett ; he's hazed me long enough, by- 
thunder ! I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want 
their pickles and wines, and that." 

" Israel," said Silver, " your head aint much 
account, nor ever was. But you're able to hear, I 
reckon; leastways, your ears is big enough. Now, 
here's what I say : you'll berth forward, and you'll live 
hard, and you'll speak soft, and you'll keep sober, till 
I give the word; and you may lay to that, my son." 

" Well, I don't say no, do I ? " growled the cox- 
swain. " What I say is, when ? That's what I 
say." 

" When ! by the powers ! " cried Silver. " Well, 
now, if you want to know, I'll tell you when. The 
last moment I can manage ; and that's when. Here's 
a first-rate seaman, Cap'n Smollett, sails the blessed 
ship for us. Here's this squire and doctor with a 
map and such — I don't know where it is, do I ? No 
more do you, says you. Well, then, I mean this squire 
and doctor shall find the stuff, and help us to get it 
aboard, by the powers. Then we'll see. If I was 
sure of you all, sons of double Dutchmen, I'd have 



90 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Cap'n Smollett navigate us half-way back again before 
I struck/' 

" Why, we're all seamen aboard here, I should 
think/' said the lad Dick. 

" We're all foc's'le hands, you mean/' snapped 
Silver. " We can steer a course, but who's to set one ? 
That's what all you gentlemen split on, first and last. 
If I had my way, I'd have Cap'n Smollett work us 
back into the trades at least; then we'd have no blessed 
miscalculations and a spoonful of water a day. But I 
know the sort you are. I'll finish with 'em at the island, 
as soon's the blunt's on board, and a pity it is. But 
you're never happy till you're drunk. Split my sides, 
I've a sick heart to sail with the likes of you ! " 

"Easy all, Long John," cried Israel. "Who's a- 
crossin' of you ? " 

" Why, how many tall ships, think ye, now, have I 
seen laid aboard ? and how many brisk lads drying in 
the sun at Execution Dock ? " cried Silver, " and all 
for this same hurry and hurry and hurry. You hear 
me? I seen a thing or two at sea, I have. If you 
would on'y lay your course, and a p'int to windward, 
you would ride in carriages, you would. But not you ! 
I know you. You'll have your mouthful of rum to- 
morrow, and go hang." 

" Everybody know'd you was a kind of a chapling, 
John; but there's others as could hand and steer as 
well as you," said Israel. "They liked a bit o' 
fun, they did. They wasn't so high and dry, nohow, 



WHAT I HEARD IN THE APPLE BARREL. 91 

but took their fling, like jolly companions every 
one/' • 

"So?" says Silver. "Well, and where are they 
now? Pew was that sort, and he died a beggar-man. 
Flint was, and he died of rum at Savannah. Ah, they 
was a sweet crew, they was ! on'y, where are they ? " 

" But/' asked Dick, " when we do lay 'em athwart, 
what are we to do with 'em, anyhow ? " 

" There's the man for me ! " cried the cook, ad- 
miringly. " That's what I call business. Well, what 
would you think ? Put 'em ashore like maroons ? That 
would have been England's way. Or cut 'em down 
like that-much pork ? That would have been Flint's or 
Billy Bones's." 

" Billy was the man for that," said Israel. " c Dead 
men don't bite,' says he. Well, he's dead now hisself ; 
he knows the long and short on it now ; and if ever a 
rough hand come to port, it was Billy." 

" Right you are," said Silver, " rough and ready. 
But mark you here : I'm an easy man — I'm quite the 
gentleman, says you ; but this time it's serious. Dooty 
is dooty, mates. I give my vote — death. When I'm 
in Parlyment, and riding in my coach, I don't want 
none of these sea-lawyers in the cabin a-coming home, 
unlooked for, like the devil at prayers. Wait is what I 
say ; but when the time comes, why let her rip ! " 

" John," cries the coxswain, " you're a man ! " 

" You'll say so, Israel, when you see," said Silver. 
Only one thing I claim — I claim Trelawney. I'll 



92 TREASURE ISLAND. 

wring his calf's head off his body with these hands, 
Dick ! " he added, breaking off, " you just jump up, like 
a sweet lad, and get me an apple, to wet my pipe 
like/' 

You may fancy the terror I was in ! I should have 
leaped out and run for it, if I had found the strength ; 
but my limbs and heart alike misgave me. I heard 
Dick begin to rise, and then some one seemingly stopped 
him, and the voice of Hands exclaimed : — 

" Oh, stow that ! Don't you get sucking of that 
bilge, John. Let's have a go of the rum." 

" Dick," said Silver, u I trust you. I've a gauge 
on the keg, mind. There's the key ; you fill a pannikin 
and bring it up." 

Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking to 
myself that this must have been how Mr. Arrow got the 
strong waters that destroyed him. 

Dick was gone but a little while, and during his 
absence Israel spoke straight on in the cook's ear. It 
was but a word or two that I could catch, and yet I 
gathered some important news ; for, besides other scraps 
that tended to the same purpose, this whole clause was 
audible : (< Not another man of them '11 jine." Hence 
there were still faithful men on board. 

When Dick returned, one after another of the trio 
took the pannikin and drank — one " To luck ; " another 
with a " Here's to old Flint ; " and Silver himself say- 
ing, in a kind of song, " Here's to ourselves, and hold 
your luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff." 



WHAT I HEARD IN THE APPLE BARREL. 93 

Just then a sort of brightness fell upon me in the 
barrel, and, looking up, I found the moon had risen, 
and was silvering the mizzen-top and shining white on 
the luff of the fore-sail; and almost at the same time the 
voice of the look-out shouted, " Land ho ! '* 



OHAPTER XII. 

COUNCIL OF WAE. 

There was a great rush of feet across the deck. I could 
hear people tumbling" up from the cabin and the focVle $ 
and, slipping in an instant outside my barrel, I dived 
behind the fore- sail, made a double towards the stern, 
and came out upon the open deck in time to join 
Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the weather 
bow. 

There all hands were already congregated. A belt 
of fog had lifted almost simultaneously with the ap- 
pearance of the moon. Away to the south-west of us 
we saw two low hills, about a couple of miles apart, and 
rising behind one of them a third and higher hill, whose 
peak was still buried in the fog. All three seemed sharp 
and conical in figure. 

So much I saw, almost in a dream, for I had not yet 
recovered from my horrid fear of a minute or two 
before. And then I heard the voice of Captain 
Smollett issuing orders. The Iiispaniola was laid a 
couple of points nearer the wind, and now sailed a 
course that would just clear the island on the east. 

" And now, men/'' said the captain, when ail was 



COUNCIL OF WAR. 95 

sheeted home, " has any one of you ever seen that land 
ahead?" 

"1 have, sir/'' said Silver. "I've watered there 
with a trader I was cook in." 

u The anchorage is on the south, behind an islet, I 
fancy ? " asked the captain. 

" Yes, sir ; Skeleton Island they calls it. It were a 
main place for pirates once, and a hand we had on hoard 
knowed all their names for it. That hill to the nor'ard 
they calls the Fore-mast Hill ; there are three hills in a 
row running southward — fore, main, and mizzen, sir. 
But the main — that's the big 'un, with the cloud on it 
— they usually calls the Spy-glass, by reason of a look- 
out they kept when they was in the anchorage cleaning; 
for it's there they cleaned their ships, sir, asking your 
pardon/' 

"I have a chart here/' says Captain Smollett. 
" See if that's the place." 

Long John's eyes burned in his head as he took the 
chart ; but, by the fresh look of the paper, I knew he 
was doomed to disappointment. This was not the map 
we found in Billy Bones's chest, but an accurate copy, 
complete in all things — names and heights and sound- 
ings — with the single exception of the red crosses and 
the written notes. Sharp as must have been his annoy- 
ance, Silver had the strength of mind to hide it. 

" Yes, sir," said he, ' ' this is the spot to be sure ; 
and very prettily d rawed out. Who might have done 
that, I wonder? The pirates were too ignorant, I 



96 TREASURE ISLAND. 

reckon. Ay, here it is: ' Capt. Kidd's Anchorage '-— 
just the name my shipmate called it. There's a strong 
current runs along the south, and then away nor'ard up 
the west coast. Right you was, sir/'' says he, " to haul 
your wind and keep the weather of the island. Least- 
ways, if such was your intention as to enter and careen, 
and there ain't no better place for that in these waters/' 

"Thank you, my man,-" says Captain Smollett. 
"I'll ask you, later on, to give us a help. You may 
go." 

I was surprised at the coolness with which John 
avowed his knowledge of the island ; and I own I was 
half- frightened when I saw him drawing nearer to 
myself. He did not know, to be sure, that I had 
overheard his council from the apple barrel, and yet 
I had, by this time, taken such a horror of his 
cruelty, duplicity, and power, that I could scarce 
conceal a shudder when he laid his hand upon my 
arm. 

"Ah/-' says he, "this here is a sweet spot, this 
island — a sweet spot for a lad to get ashore on. You'll 
bathe, and you'll climb trees, and you'll hunt goats, 
you will ; and you'll get aloft on them hills like a goat 
yourself. Why, it makes me young again. I was 
going to forget my timber leg, I was. It's a pleasant 
thing to be young, and have ten toes, and you may lay 
to that. "When you want to go a bit of exploring, you 
just ask old John, and he'll put up a snack for you to 
take alone:.'''' 



COUNCIL OF WAR. 97 

And clapping me in the friendliest way upon the 
shoulder, he hobbled off forward, and went below. 

Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey were 
talking together on the quarter-deck, and, anxious as 
I was to tell them my story, I durst not interrupt them 
openly. While I was still easting about in my thoughts 
to find some probable excuse, Dr. Livesey called me to 
his side. He had left his pipe below, and being a slave 
to tobacco, had meant that I should fetch it; but as 
soon as I was near enough to speak and not to be over- 
heard, I broke out immediately : — (< Doctor, let me speak. 
Get the captain and squire down to the cabin, and then 
make some pretence to send for me. I have terrible 
news/'' 

The doctor changed countenance a little, but next 
moment he was master of himself. 

" Thank you, Jim,'''' said he, quite loudly, " that 
was all I wanted to know/'' as if he had asked me a 
question. 

And with that h*e turned on his heel and rejoined 
the other two. They spoke together for a little, and 
though none of them started, or raised his voice, or so 
much as whistled, it was plain enough that Dr. Livesey 
had communicated my request ; for the next thing that 
I heard was the captain giving an order to Job Ander- 
son, and all hands were piped on deck. 

" My lads/' said Captain Smollett, " Pve a word to 
say to you. Whis land that we have sighted is the place 
we have been sailing for. Mr. Trelawney, being a very 



98 TREASURE ISLAND. 

open-handed gentleman, as we all know, has just asked 
me a word or two, and as I was able to tell him that 
every man on board had done his duty, alow and aloft, 
as I never ask to see it done better, why, he and I and 
the doctor are going below to the cabin to drink your 
health and luck, and you'll have grog served out for you 
to drink our health and luck. I'll tell you what I 
think of this : I think it handsome. And if you think 
as I do, you'll give a good sea cheer for the gentleman 
that does it." 

The cheer followed — that was a matter of course ; 
but it rang out so full and hearty, that I confess I could 
hardly believe these same men were plotting for our 
blood. 

" One more cheer for Cap'n Smollett/'' cried Long 
John, when the first had subsided. 

And this also was given with a will. 

On the top of that the three gentlemen went below, 
and not long after, word was sent forward that Jim 
Hawkins was wanted in the cabin. 

I found them all three seated round the table, a 
bottle of Spanish wine and some raisins before them, 
and the doctor smoking away, with his wig on his lap, 
and that, I knew, was a sign that he was agitated. The 
stern window was open, for it was a warm night, and 
you could see the moon shining behind on the ship's 
wake. 

"Now, Hawkins," said the squire, " you have some- 
thing to say. Speak up." 



COUNCIL OF WAE. 99 

I did as I was bid, and as short as I could make it, 
told the whole details of Silver's conversation. Nobody 
interrupted me till I was done, nor did any one of the 
three of them make so much as a movement, but they 
kept their eyes upon my face from first to last. 

" Jirn/' said Dr. Livesey, " take a seat."" 

And they made me sit down at table beside them, 
poured me out a glass of wine, filled my hands with 
raisins, and all three, one after the other, and each with 
a bow, drank my good health, and their service to me, 
for my luck and courage. 

" Now, captain/'' said the squire, " you were right, 
and I was wrong. I own myself an ass, and I await 
your orders/'' 

" No more an ass than I, sir/'' returned the captain. 
"1 never heard of a crew that meant to mutiny but 
what showed signs before, for any man that had an eye 
in his head to see the mischief and take steps according. 
But this crew/'' he added, " beats me/' 

" Captain/'' said the doctor, ' ' with your permission, 
that's Silver. A very remarkable man. - " 

" He'd look remarkably well from a yard-arm, sir," 
returned the captain. " But this is talk ; this don't 
lead to anything. I see three or four points, and with 
Mr. Trelawney's permission, I'll name them.'''' 

" You, sir, are the captain. It is for you to speak," 
says Mr. Trelawney, grandly. 

" First point/' began Mr. Smollett. " We must go 
on, because we can't turn back. If I gave the word to 
H 2 



100 TREASURE ISLAND. 

go about, they would rise at once. Second point, we 
have time before us — at least, until this treasure's 
found. Third point, there are faithful hands. Now, 
sir, it's got to come to blows sooner or later ; and what 
I propose is, to take time by the forelock, as the saying 
is, and come to blows some fine day when they least 
expect it. We can count, I take it, on your own home 
servants, Mr. Trelawney ? " 

' ' As upon inyself," declared the squire. 

{ ' Three," reckoned the captain, " ourselves make 
seven, counting Hawkins, here. Now, about the 
honest hands?"" 

"Most likely Trelawney's own men/' said the doctor; 
" those he had picked up for himself, before he lit on 
Silver." 

" Nay," replied the squire, " Hands was one of 
mine." 

" I did think I could have trusted Hands," added 
the captain. 

"And to think that they're all Englishmen!" 
broke out the squire. " Sir, 1 could find it in my heart 
to blow the ship up." 

te Well, gentlemen," said the captain, " the best that 
I can say is not much. We must lay to, if you please, 
and keep a bright look out. It's trying on a man, I 
know. It would be pleasanter to 'come to blows, But 
there's no help for it till we know our men. Lay to, 
and whistle for a wind, that's my view." 

"Jim here," said the doctor, "can help us more 



COUNCIL OF WAR. 101 

than any one. The men are not shy with him, and Jim 
is a noticing lad." 

" Hawkins, I pnt prodigious faith in you/' added 
the squire. 

I began to feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt 
altogether helpless ; and yet, by an odd train of cir- 
cumstances, it was indeed through me that safety came. 
In the meantime, talk as we pleased, there were only 
seven out of the twenty-six on whom we knew we 
could rely ; and out of these seven one was a boy, so 
that the grown men on our side were six to their 
nineteen. 



Part IIL 

MY SHORE ADVENTUEE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOW MY SHOEE ADVENTURE BEGAN. 

The appearance of the island when I came on deck next 
morning was altogether changed. Although the breeze 
had now utterly ceased, we had made a great deal of 
way during the night, and were now lying becalmed 
about half a mile to the south-east of the low eastern 
coast. Grey-coloured woods covered a large part of the 
surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks 
of yellow sandbreak in the lower lands, and by many 
tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others — 
some singly, some in clumps; but the general colouring 
was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the 
vegetation in spires of naked rock. All were strangely 
shaped, and the Spy-glass, which was by three or four 
hundred feet the tallest on the island, was likewise the 
strangest in configuration, running up sheer from almost 
every side, and then suddenly cut off at the top like a 
pedestal to put a statue on. 



HOW MY SHORE ADVENTURE BEGAN. 103 

The Kisjpaniola was rolling scuppers under in the 
ocean swell. The booms were tearing" at the blocks, 
the rudder was banging to and fro, and the whole ship 
creaking, groaning, and jumping like a manufactory. 
I had to cling tight to the backstay, and the world 
turned giddily before my eyes ; for though I was a good 
enough sailor when there was way on, this standing 
still and being- rolled about like a bottle was a thins: I 
never learned to stand without a qualm or so, above all 
in the morning, on an empty stomach. 

Perhaps it was this — perhaps it was the look of the 
island, with its grey, melancholy woods, and wild stone 
spires, and the surf that we could both see and hear 
foaming and thundering on the steep beach — at least, 
although the sun shone bright and hot, and the shore 
birds were fishing and crying all around us, and you 
would have thought any one would have been glad to get 
to land after being so long at sea, my heart sank, as 
the saying is, into my boots ; and from that first look 
onward, I hated the very thought of Treasure Island. 

We had a dreary morning's work before us, for there 
was no sign of any wind, and the boats had to be got 
out and manned, and the ship warped three or four 
miles round the corner of the island, and up the narrow 
passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island. I 
volunteered for one of the boats, where I had, of course, 
no business. The heat was sweltering, and the men 
grumbled fiercely over their work. Anderson was 
in command of my boat, and instead of keeping 



104 TEEASUEE ISLAND. 

the crew in order, he grumbled as loud as the 
worst. 

"Well," he said, with an oath, "it's not for 
ever." 

I thought this was a very bad sign ; for, up to that 
day, the men had gone briskly and willingly about their 
business ; but the very sight of the island had relaxed 
the cords of discipline. 

All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman 
and conned the ship. He knew the passage like the 
palm of his hand ; and though the man in the chains 
got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, 
John never hesitated once. 

"There's a strong scour with the ebb/'' he said, 
" and this here passage has been dug out, in a manner 
of speaking, with a spade." 

We brought up just where the anchor was in the 
chart, about a third of a mile from each shore, the 
mainland on one side, and Skeleton Island on the other. 
The bottom was clean sand. The plunge of our anchor 
sent up clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the 
woods ; but in less than a minute they were down again, 
and all was once more silent. 

The place was entirely land-locked, buried in woods, 
the trees coming right down to high-water mark, the 
shores mostly flat, and the hilltops standing round at 
a distance in a sort of amphitheatre, one here, one 
there. Two little rivers, or, rather, two swamps, 
emptied out into this pond, as you might call it; 



HOW MY SHOEE ADVENTURE BEGAN. 105 

and the foliage round that part o£ the shore had a 
kind of poisonous brightness. From the ship, we 
conld see nothing of the house or stockade, for they 
were quite buried among trees ; and if it had not been 
for the chart on the companion, we might have been the 
first that had ever anchored there since the island arose 
out of the seas. 

There was not a breath of air moving, nor a sound 
but that of the surf booming half a mile away along 
the beaches and against the rocks outside. A peculiar 
stagnant smell hung over the anchorage — a smell of 
sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks. I observed the 
doctor sniffing and sniffing, like some one tasting a bad 

egg- 

" I don't know about treasure," he said, ee but I'll 
stake my wig there's fever here." 

If the conduct of the men had been alarming in 
the boat, it became truly threatening when they had 
come aboard. They lay about the deck growling 
together in talk. The slightest order was received 
with a black look, and grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. 
Even the honest hands must have caught the infection, 
for there was not one man aboard to mend another. 
Mutiny, it was plain, hung over us like a thunder-cloud. 

And it was not only we of the cabin party who 
perceived the danger. Long John was hard at work 
going from group to group, spending himself in good 
advice, and as for example no man could have shown 
a better. He fairly outstripped himself in willingness 



106 TKEASUEE ISLAND. 

and civility; he was all smiles to every one. If an 
order were given, John would he on his crutch in an 
instant, with the cheeriest " Ay, ay, sir!'''' in the world; 
and when there was nothing else to do, he kept up one 
song after another, as if to conceal the discontent of the 
rest. 

Of all the gloomy features of that gloomy afternoon, 
this ohvious anxiety on the part of Long John appeared 
the worst. 

We held a council in the cahin. 

" Sir/' said the captain, " if I risk another order, 
the whole ship '11 come about our ears by the ran. You 
see, sir, here it is. I get a rough answer, do I not? 
Well, if I speak back, pikes will be going in two shakes; 
if I don't, Silver will see there's something under that, 
and the game's up. Now, we've only one man to rely / 
on." 

" And who is that ? " asked the squire. 

" Silver, sir," returned the captain ; " he's as 
anxious as you and I to smother things up. This is a 
tiff ; he'd soon talk 'em out of it if he had the chance, 
and what I propose to do is to give him the chance. 
Let's allow the men an afternoon ashore. If they all 
go, why, we'll fight the ship. If they none of them 
go, well, then, we hold the cabin, and God defend 
the right. If some go, you mark my words, sir, 
Silver '11 bring ; em aboard again as mild as 
lambs." 

It was so decided; loaded pistols were served out 



HOW MY SHORE ADVENTURE BEGAN. 107 

to all the sure men; Hunter, Joyce, and Redruth were 
taken into our confidence, and received the news with 
less surprise and a better spirit than we had looked for, 
and then the captain went on deck and addressed 
the crew. 

"My lads," said he, "we've had a hot day, and 
are all tired and out of sorts. A turn ashore '11 hurt 
nobody — the boats are still in the water; you can 
take the gigs, and as many as please may go ashore 
for the afternoon. I'll fire a gun half an hour before 
sundown." 

I believe the silly fellows must have thought they 
would break their shins over treasure as soon as they 
were landed ; for they all came out of their sulks in a 
moment, and gave a cheer that started the echo in a 
far-away hill, and sent the birds once more flying and 
squalling round the anchorage. 

The captain was too bright to be in the way. 
He whipped out of sight in a moment, leaving Silver 
to arrange the party; and I fancy it was as well 
he did so. Had he been on deck, he could no longer 
so much as have pretended not to understand the 
situation. It was as plain as day. Silver was the 
captain, and a mighty rebellious crew he had of it. 
The honest hands — and I was soon to see it proved 
that there. were such on board — must have been very 
stupid fellows. Or, rather, I suppose the truth was 
this, that all hands were disaffected by the example 
of the ringleaders — only some more, some less ; and a 



108 TREASURE ISLAND. 

few, being good fellows in the main, conld neither be 
led nor driven any further. It is one thing to be 
idle and skulk, and quite another to take a ship and 
murder a number of innocent men. 

At last, however, the party was made up. Six 
fellows were to stay on board, and the remaining 
thirteen, including Silver, began to embark. 

Then it was that there came into my head the 
first of the mad notions that contributed so much to 
save our lives. If six men were left by Silver, it was 
plain our party could not take and fight the ship; 
and since only six were left, it was equally plain that 
the cabin party had no present need of my assistance. 
It occurred to me at once to go ashore. In a jiffy 
I had slipped over the side, and curled up in the 
fore-sheets of the nearest boat, and almost at the 
same moment she shoved off. 

No one took notice of me, only the bow oar 
saying, °Is that you, Jim? Keep your head 
down/'' But Silver, from the other boat, looked 
sharply over and called out to know if that were me ; 
and from that moment I began to regret what I had 
done. 

The crews raced for the beach; but the boat 
I was in, having some start, and being at once the 
lighter and the better manned, shot far ahead of her 
consort, and the bow had struck among the shore- 
side trees, and I had caught a branch and swung 
myself out, and plunged into the nearest thicket, 



HOW MY SHORE ADVENTURE BEGAN. 109 

while Silver and the rest were still a hundred yards 
behind. 

" Jim, Jim!" I heard him shouting. 

But you may suppose I paid no heed; jumping 1 , 
ducking, and breaking through, I ran straight before 
my nose, till I could run no longer. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE < F I EST BLOW. 

I was so pleased at having given the slip to Long 
John, that I began to enjoy myself and look around 
me with some interest on the strange land that I 
was in. 

I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows, 
bulrushes, and odd, outlandish, swampy trees ; and 
I had now come out upon the skirts of an open 
piece of undulating, sandy country, about a mile 
long, dotted with a few pines, and a great number 
of contorted trees, not unlike the oak in growth, but 
pale in the foliage, like willows. On the far side of 
the open stood one of the hills, with two quaint, 
craggy peaks, shining vividly in the sun. 

I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration. 
The isle was uninhabited; my shipmates I had left 
behind, and nothiug lived in front of me but dumb 
brutes and fowls. I turned hither and thither among 
the trees. Here and there were flowering plants, 
unknown to me ; here and there I saw snakes, and 
one raised his head from a ledge of rock and hissed 
at me with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top. 



THE FIRST BLOW. Ill 

Little did I suppose that he was a deadly enemy, and 
that the noise was the famous rattle. 

Then I came to a long thicket of these oak-like 
trees — live, or evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards they 
should be called — which grew low along the sand like 
brambles, the boughs curiously twisted, the foliage com- 
pact, like thatch. The thicket stretched down from the 
top of one of the sandy knolls, spreading and growing 
taller as it went, until it reached the margin of the 
broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest of the little 
rivers soaked its way into the anchorage. The marsh 
was steaming in the strong sun, and the outline of the 
Spy-glass trembled through the haze. 

All at once there began to go a sort of bustle among 
the bulrushes ; a wild duck flew up with a quack, 
another followed, and soon over the whole surface of the 
marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming and cir- 
cling in the air. I judged at once that some of my 
shipmates must be drawing near along the borders of 
the fen. Nor was I deceived ; for soon I heard the 
very distant and low tones of a human voice, which, 
as I continued to give ear, grew steadily louder and 
nearer. 

This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under 
cover of the nearest live-oak, and squatted there, 
hearkening, as silent as a mouse. 

Another voice answered; and then the first voice, 
which I now recognised to be Silver's, once more took 
up the story, and ran on for a long while in a stream, 



112 TKEASUltE ISLAND. 

only now and again interrupted by the other. By the 
sound they must have been talking earnestly, and 
almost fiercely ; but no distinct word came to my 
hearing. 

At last the speakers seemed to have paused, and 
perhaps to have sat down ; for not only did they cease 
to draw any nearer, but the birds themselves began to 
grow more quiet, and to settle again to their places in 
the swamp. 

And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my 
business ; that since I had been so foolhardy as to come 
ashore with these desperadoes, the least I could do was 
to overhear them at their councils ; and that my plain 
and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage., 
under the favourable ambush of the crouching trees. 

I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty 
exactly, not only by the sound of their voices, but by 
the behaviour of the few birds that still hung in alarm 
above the heads of the intruders. 

Crawling on all-fours, I made steadily but slowly 
towards them ; till at last, raising my head to an aper- 
ture among the leaves, I could see clear down into a 
little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set about 
with trees, where Long John Silver and another of the 
crew stood face to face in conversation. 

The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown 
his hat beside him on the ground, and his great, smooth, 
blond face, all shining with heat, was lifted to the other 
man^s in a kind of appeal. 



THE FIRST BLOW. 113 

" Mate/' he was saying*, te it's because I thinks gold 
dust of you — gold dust, and you may lay to that ! If 
I hadn't took to you like pitch, do you think I'd 
have been here a- warning 1 of you ? All's up — you 
can't make nor mend ; it's to save your neck that 
I'm a-speaking, and if one of the wild 'uns knew it, 
where 'ud I be, Tom — now, tell me, where 'ud I 
be?" 

" Silver," said the other man — and I observed he 
was not only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a 
crow, and his voice shook, too, like a taut rope — 
" Silver," says he, " you're old, and you're honest, or 
has the name for it ; and you've money, too, which lots 
of poor sailors hasn't ; and you're brave, or I'm mistook. 
And will you tell me you'll let yourself be led away with 
that kind of a mess of swabs ? not you ! As sure as 
God sees me, I'd sooner lose my hand. If I turn agin 
my dooty " 

And then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a 
noise. I had found one of the honest hands — well, 
here, at that same moment, came news of another. Far 
away out in the marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a 
sound like the cry of anger, then another on the back of 
it ; and then one horrid, long-drawn scream. The rocks 
of the Spy-glass re-echoed it a score of times; the 
whole troop of marsh-birds rose again, darkening heaven, 
with a simultaneous whirr ; and long after that death 
yell was still ringing in my brain, silence had re-estab- 
lished its empire, and only the rustle of the redescending 



114 TREASURE ISLAND. 

birds and the boom of the distant surges disturbed the 
languor of the afternoon. 

Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse at the 
spnr; but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood 
where he was, resting lightly on his crutch, watching 
his companion like a snake about to spring. 

" John ! " said the sailor, stretching out his hand. 

" Hands off ! " cried Silver, leaping back a yard, as 
it seemed to me, with the speed and security of a trained 
gymnast. 

" Hands off, if you like, John Silver," said the 
other. " It's a black conscience that can make you 
feared of me. But, in heaven's name, tell me what was 
that?" 

' ' That ? " returned Silver, smiling away, but warier 
than ever, his eye a mere pin-point in his big face, but 
gleaming like a crumb of glass. <l That ? Oh, I reckon 
that'll be Alan." 

And at this poor Tom flashed out like a her^p 

" Alan ! " he cried. " Then rest his soul for a true 
seaman ! And as for you, John Silver, long you've 
been a mate of mine, but you're mate of mine no more. 
If I die like a dog, I'll die in my dooty. You've killed 
Alan, have you? Kill me, too, if you can. But I 
defies you." 

And with that, this brave fellow turned his back 
directly on the cook, and set off walking for the beach. 
But he was not destined to go far. With a cry, John 
seized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of his 



THE FIEST BLOW. 115 

armpit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through 
the air. It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with 
stunning' violence, right between the shoulders in the 
middle of his back. His hands flew up, he gave a sort 
of gasp, and fell. 

Whether he were injured much or little, none could 
ever tell. Like enough, to judge from the sound, his 
back was broken on the spot. But he had no time 
given him to recover. Silver, agile as a monkey, even 
without leg or crutch, was on the top of him next 
moment, and had twice buried his knife up to the hilt 
in that defenceless body. From my place of ambush, 
I could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows. 

I do not know what it rightly is to faint, but I do 
know that for the next little while the whole world 
swam away from before me in a whirling mist ; Silver 
and the birds, and the tall Spy-glass hill-top, going 
round and round and topsy-turvy before my eyes, and 
all mann^of bells ringing and distant voices shouting 
in my ear. 

When I came again to myself, the monster had 
pulled himself together, his crutch under his arm, his 
hat upon his head. Just before him Tom lay motionless 
upon the sward ; but the murderer minded him not a 
whit, cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a 
wisp of grass. Everything else was unchanged, the 
sun still shining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and 
the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce 
persuade myself that murder had been actually done. 
i 2 



116 TREASURE ISLAND. 

and a human life cruelly cut shorty a moment since, 
before my eyes. 

But now John put his hand into his pocket, brought 
out a whistle, and blew upon it several modulated 
blasts, that rang far across the heated air. I could not 
tell, of course, the meaning of the signal; but it 
instantly awoke my fears. More men would be 
coming. I might be discovered. They had already 
slain two of the honest people; after Tom and Alan, 
might not I come next ? 

Instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl 
back again, with what speed and silence I could 
manage, to the more open portion of the wood. As I 
did so, I could hear hails coming and going between the 
old buccaneer and his comrades, and this sound of danger 
lent me wings. As soon as I was clear of the thicket, 
I ran as I never ran before, scarce minding the direction 
of my night, so long as it led me from the murderers ; 
and as I ran, fear grew and grew upon me, until it 
turned into a kind of frenzy. 

Indeed, could any one be more entirely lost than I ? 
When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down 
to the boats among those fiends, still smoking from their 
crime? Would not the first of them who saw me 
wring my neck like a snipe's ? Would not my absence 
itself be an evidence to them of my alarm, and therefore 
of my fatal knowledge ? It was all over, I thought 
Good-bye to the Hispaniola ; good-bye to the squire, the 
doctor, and the captain ! There was nothing left forme 



THE FIRST BLOW. 117 

but death by starvation, or death by the hands of the 
mutineers. 

All this while, as I say, I was still running-, and, 
without taking any notice, I had drawn near to the foot 
of the little hill with the two peaks, and had got into a 
part of the island where the live-oaks grew more widely 
apart, and seemed more like forest trees in their bearing 1 
and dimensions. Mingled with these were a few 
scattered pines, some fifty, some nearer seventy, feet 
high. The air, too, smelt more freshly than down beside 
the marsh. 

And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill 
with a thumping heart. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE MAX OP THE ISLAXD. 

From the side of the hill, which was here steep and 
stony, a spout of gravel was dislodged, and fell rattling 
and bounding through the trees. My eyes turned 
instinctively in that direction, and I saw a figure leap 
with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine. "What 
it was, whether bear or man or monkey, I could in no 
wise tell. It seemed dark and shaggy ; more I knew 
not. But the terror of this new apparition brought me 
to a stand. 

I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both sides ; 
behind me the murderers, before me this lurking non- 
descript. And immediately I began to prefer the 
dangers that I knew to those I knew not. Silver him- 
self appeared less terrible in contrast with this creatine 
of the woods, and I turned on my heel, and, looking 
sharply behind me over my shoulder, began to retrace my 
steps in the direction of the boats. 

Instantly the figure reappeared, and, making a wide 
circuit, began to head me off. I was tired, at any rate ; 
but had I been as fresh as when I rose, I could see it 
was in vain for me to contend in speed with such an 



THE MAN OF THE ISLAND. 119 

adversary. From trunk to trunk the creature flitted 
like a deer, running manlike on two legs, but unlike 
any man that I had ever seen, stooping almost double 
as it ran. Yet a man it was, I could no longer be in 
doubt about that. 

I began to recall what I had heard of cannibals. I 
was within an ace of calling for help. But the mere 
fact that he was a man, however wild, had somewhat 
reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in 
proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for 
some method of escape ; and as I was so thinking, the 
recollection of my pistol flashed into my mind. As soon 
as I remembered I was not defenceless, courage glowed 
again in my heart ; and I set my face resolutely for 
this man of the island, and walked briskly towards 
him. 

He was concealed by this time, behind another tree 
trurik j but he must have been watching me closely, for 
as soon as I began to move in his direction he reappeared 
and took a step to meet me. Then he hesitated, drew 
back, came forward again, and at last, to my wonder and 
confusion, threw himself on his knees and held out his 
clasped hands in supplication. 

At that I once more stopped. 

" Who are you ? " I asked. 

" Ben Gunn/' he answered, and his voice sounded 
hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock. " I'm poor 
Ben Gunn, I am ; and I haven't spoke with a Christian 
these three years." 



120 TREASURE ISLAND. 

I could now see that he was a white man like myself, 
and that his features were even pleasing. His skin, 
wherever it was exposed, was burnt by the sun ; even 
his lips were black, and his fair eyes looked quite 
startling in so dark a face. Of all the beggar-men 
that I had seen or fancied, he was the chief for ragged- 
ness. He was clothed with tatters of old ship's canvas 
and old sea cloth ; and^ this extraordinary patchwork 
was all held together by a system of the most various 
and incongruous fastenings, brass buttons, bits of stick, 
and loops of tarry gaskin. About his waist he wore 
an old brass-buckled leather belt, which was the one 
thing solid in his whole accoutrement. 

" Three years ! " I cried. " Were, you ship- 
wrecked ?" 

" Nay, mate/' said he — " marooned/'' 

I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a 
horrible kind of punishment common enough among the 
buccaneers, in which the offender is put ashore with a 
little powder and shot, and left behind on some desolate 
and distant island. 

" Marooned three years agone," he continued, " and 
lived on goats since then, and berries, and oysters. 
Wherever a man is, says I, a man can do for himself. 
But, mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet. You 
mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, 
now? No? Well, many's the long night Tve dreamed 
of cheese — toasted, mostly — and woke up again, and 
here I were." 



THE MAN OF THE ISLAND. 121 

" If ever I can get aboard again," said I, " yon shall 
have cheese by the stone. " 

All this time he had been feeling the stuff of my 
jacket, smoothing my hands, looking at my boots, and • 
generally, in the intervals of his speech, showing a 
childish pleasure in the presence of a fellow-creature. 
But at my last words he perked up into a kind of 
startled slyness. 

6C If ever you can get aboard again, says you ? " he 
repeated. " Why, now, who's to hinder you ? " 

" Not you, I know," was my reply. 

" And right you was," he cried. " Now you — what 
do you call yourself, mate ? '* 

« Jim," I told him. 

"Jim, Jim," says he, quite pleased apparently. 
" Well, now, Jim, Fve lived that rough as you'd be 
ashamed to hear of. Now, for instance, you wouldn't 
think I had had a pious mother — to look at me ? " he 
asked. 

" Why, no, not in particular," I answered. 

" Ah, well," said he, " but I had — remarkable pious. 
And I was a civil, pious boy, and could rattle off my 
catechism that fast, as you couldn't tell one word from 
another. And here's what it come to, Jim, and it 
begun with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-stones ! 
That's what it begun with, but it went f urther'n that ; 
and so my mother told me, and predicked the whole, she 
did, the pious woman ! But it were Providence that 
put me here. I've thought it all out in this here lonely 



122 TREASURE ISLAND. 

island, and I'm back on piety. You don't catch me 
tasting rum so much ; but just a thimbleful for luck, 
of course, the first chance I have. I'm bound I'll be 
good, and I see the way to. And, Jim " — looking all 
round him, and lowering his voice to a whisper — " I'm 
rich." 

I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy 
in his solitude, and I suppose I must have shown the 
feeling in my face; for he repeated the statement 
hotly : — 

« Rich ! rich ! I says. And I'll tell you what : Til 
make a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you'll bless 
your stars, you will, you was the first that found 
me!" 

And at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow 
over his face, and he tightened his grasp upon my 
hand, and raised a forefinger threateningly before my 
eyes. 

' ' Now, Jim, you tell me true : that ain't Flint's 
ship ? " he asked. 

At this I had a happy inspiration. I began to 
believe that I had found an ally, and I answered him at 
once. 

' ' It's not Flint's ship, and Flint is dead ; but I'll 
tell you true, as you ask me — there are some of 
Flint's hands aboard; worse luck for the rest of 
us." 

" Not a man — with one — leg ? " he gasped. 

" Silver?" I asked. 



THE MAN OF THE ISLAND. 123 

"Ah, Silver ! " says he; "that were his name." 

" He's the cook; and the ringleader, too/'' 

He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he 
gave it quite a wring. 

" If you was sent by Long John/' he said, " I'm as 
good as pork, and I know it. But where was you, do 
you suppose ? " 

I had made my mind up in a moment, and by way 
of answer told him the whole story of our voyage, and 
the predicament in which we found ourselves. He 
heard me with the keenest interest, and when I had 
done he patted me on the head. 

"You're a good lad, Jim," he said; "and you're 
all in a clove hitch, aint you? Well, you just put your 
trust in Ben Gunn — Ben Gunn's the man to do it. 
Would you think it likely, now, that your squire would 
prove a liberal-minded one in case of help — him being in 
a clove hitch, as you remark? " 

I told him the squire was the most liberal of men. 

"Ay, but you see," returned Ben Gunn, "I didn't 
mean giving me a gate to keep, and a shuit of livery 
clothes, and such; that's not my mark, Jim. What 
I mean is, would he be likely to come down to the toon 
of, say one thousand pounds out of money that's as good 
as a man's own already?" 

"I am sure he would," said I. "As it was, all 
hands were to share." 

" And a passage home ? " he added, with a look of 
great shrewdness. 



124 TREASURE ISLAND. 

"Why," I cried, "the squire's a gentleman. And, 
besides, if we got rid of the others, we should want you 
to help work the vessel home." 

" Ah/' said he, "so you would." And he seemed 
very much relieved. 

"Now, I'll tell you what," he went on. "So much 
I'll tell you, and no more. I were in Flint's ship when 
he buried the treasure; he and six along — six strong 
seamen. They was ashore nigh on a week, and us 
standing off and on in the old Walrus. One fine day up 
went the signal, and here come Flint by himself in a 
little boat, and his head done up in a blue scarf. The 
sun was getting up, and mortal white he looked about 
the cutwater. But, there he was, you mind, and the 
six all dead — dead and buried. How be done it, not a 
man aboard us could make out. It was battle, murder, 
and sudden death, leastways — him against six. Billy 
Bones was the mate; Long John, he was quarter- 
master; and they asked him where the treasure 
was. 'Ah,' says he, 'you can go ashore, if you 
like, and stay,' he says; 'but as for the ship, she'll 
beat up for more, by thunder ! ' That's what he 
said. 

"Well, I was in another ship three years back, and 
we sighted this island. 'Boys,' »aid I, 'here's Flint's 
treasure; let's land and find it/ The cap'n was 
displeased at that; but my messmates were all of 
a mind, and landed. Twelve days they looked for it, 
and every day they had the worse word for me, until one 



THE MAN OF THE ISLAND. 125 

fine morning' all hands went aboard. 'As for you, 

Benjamin Grunn/ says they, 'here's a musket/ they 

says, 'and a spade, and pickaxe. You can stay 

here, and find Flint's money for yourself,' they 



"Well, Jim, three years have I been here, and 
not a bite of Christian diet from that day to this. 
But now, you look here; look at me. Do I look 
like a man before the mast? No, says you. Nor I 
weren't, neither, I says." 

And with that he winked and pinched me hard. 

" Just you mention them words to your squire, 
Jim" — he went on : " Nor he weren't, neither — that's 
the words. Three years he were the man of this island, 
light and dark, fair and rain ; and sometimes he would, 
maybe, think upon a prayer (says you), and some- 
times he would, maybe, think of his old mother, so 
be as she's alive (you'll say) ; but the most part of 
Gunn's time (this is what you'll say) — the most 
part of his time was took up with another matter. 
And then you'll give him a nip, like I do." 

And he pinched me again in the most confidential 
manner. 

" Then," he continued — " then you'll up, and you'll 
say this : — Gunn is a good man (you'll say), and he 
puts a precious sight more confidence — a precious sight, 
mind that — in a gentleman born than in these gen'lemen 
of fortune, having been one hisself." 

"Well," I said, "I don't understand one word that 



126 TREASURE ISLAND. 

you've been saying. But that's neither here nor there ; 
for how am I to get on board ?" 

"Ah," said he, "that's the hitch, for sure. Well, 
there's my boat, that I made with my two hands. 
I keep her under the white rock. If the worst come 
to the worst, we might try that after dark. Hi ! '* he 
broke out, e< what's that?" 

For just then, although the sun had still an hour 
or two to run, all the echoes of the island awoke and 
bellowed to the thunder of a cannon. 

" They have begun to fight ! " I cried. " Follow 
me." 

And I began to run towards the anchorage, my 
terrors all forgotten; while, close at my side, the 
marooned man in his goatskins trotted easily and 
lightly. 

" Left, left," says he ; ' ( keep to your left hand, mate 
Jim ! Under the trees with you ! Theer's where I 
killed my first goat. They don't come down here now ; 
they're all mastheaded on them mountings for the fear 
of Benjamin Gunn. Ah ! and there's the cetemery" — 
cemetery, he must have meant. " You see the mounds ? 
I come here and prayed, nows and thens, when I thought 
maybe a Sunday would be about doo. It weren't quite 
a chapel, but it seemed more solemn like ; and then, 
says you, Ben Gunn, was short-handed — no chapling, 
nor so much as a Bible and a flag, you says." 

So he kept talking as I ran, neither expecting nor 
receiving any answer. 



THE MAN OF THE ISLAND. 127 

The cannon-shot was followed, after a considerable 
interval, by a volley of small arms. 

Another pause, and then, not a quarter of a mile in 
front of me, I beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air 
above a wood. 






Part IV. 

THE STOCKADE. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

NAEEATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR : HOW THE SHIP 
WAS ABANDONED. 

It was about half-past one — three bells in the sea 
phrase — that the two boats went ashore from the 
Hispaniola. The captain, the squire, and I were talking 
matters over in the cabin. Had there been a breath of 
wind, we should have fallen on the six mutineers who 
were left aboard with us, slipped our cable, and away to 
sea. But the wind was wanting ; and, to complete our 
helplessness, down came Hunter with the news that Jim 
Hawkins had slipped into a boat and was gone ashore 
with the rest. 

It never occurred to us to doubt Jim Hawkins ; but 
we were alarmed for his safety. With the men in the 
temper they were in, it seemed an even chance if we 
should see the lad again. We ran on deck. The 
pitch was bubbling in the seams; the nasty stench 
of the place turned me sick; if ever a man smelt fever 



HOW THE SHIP WAS ABANDONED. 129 

and dysentery, it was in that abominable anchorage 
The six scoundrels were sitting grumbling under a sail 
in the forecastle ; ashore we could see the gigs made 
fast, and a man sitting in each, hard by where the 
river runs in. One of them was whistling " Lilli- 
bullero." 

Waiting was a strain; and it was decided that 
Hunter and I should go ashore with the jolly-boat, in 
quest of information. 

The gigs had leaned to their right ; but Hunter and 
I pulled straight in, in the direction of the stockade 
upon the chart. The two who were left guarding their 
boats seemed in a bustle at our appearance ; " Lilli- 
bullero " stopped off, and I could see the pair discussing 
what they ought to do. Had they gone and told Silver, 
all might have turned out differently; but they had 
their orders, I suppose, and decided to sit quietly where 
they were and hark back again to " Lillibullero/' , 

There was a slight bend in the coast, and I steered so 
as to put it between us ; even before we landed we had 
thus lost sight of the gigs. I jumped out, and came as 
near running as I durst, with a big silk handkerchief 
under my hat for coolness' sake, and a brace of pistols 
ready primed for safety. 

I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the 
stockade. 

This was how it was : a spring of clear water rose 
almost at the top of a knoll. Well, on the knoll, and 
enclosing the spring, they had clapped a stout log-house, 






130 TREASURE ISLAND. 

fit to hold two score of people on a pinch, and loopholed 
for musketry on every side. All round this they had 
cleared a wide space, and then the thing was completed 
by a paling six feet high, without door or opening, too 
strong to pull down without time and labour, and too 
open to shelter the besiegers. The people in the log- 
house had them in every way; they stood quiet in 
shelter and shot the others like partridges. All they 
^wanted was a good watch and food ; for, short of a com- 
plete surprise, they might have held the place against a 
regiment. 

What particularly took my fancy was the spring. 
For, though we had a good enough place of it in the 
cabin of the Hisjoaniola, with plenty of arms and ammuni- 
tion, and things to eat, and excellent wines, there had 
been one thing overlooked — we had no water. I was 
thinking this over, when there came ringing over the 
island the cry of a man at the point of death. I was 
not new to violent death — I have served his Royal 
Highness the Duke of Cumberland, and got a wound 
myself at Fontenoy — but I know my pulse went dot 
and carry one. " Jim Hawkins is gone/' was my first 
thought. 

It is something to have been an old soldier, but 
more still to have been a doctor. There is no time to 
dilly-dally in our work. And so now I made up my 
mind instantly, and with no time lost returned to the 
shore, and jumped on board the jolly-boat. 

By good fortune Hunter pulled a good oar. We 



HOW THE SHIP WAS ABANDONED. 131 

made the water fly; and the boat was soon alongside, 
and I aboard the schooner. 

I found them all shaken, as was natural. The squire 
was sitting down, as white as a sheet, thinking of the 
harm he had led us to, the good soul ! and one of the 
six forecastle hands was little better. 

" There's a man/' says Captain Smollett, nodding 
towards him, " new to this work. He came nigh-hand 
fainting, doctor, when he heard the cry. Another touch 
of the rudder and that man would join us."" 

I told my plan to the captain, and between us we 
settled on the details of its accomplishment. 

We put old Redruth in the gallery between the cabin 
and the forecastle, with three or four loaded muskets and 
a mattress for protection. Hunter brought the boat 
round under the stern-port, and Joyce and I set to work 
loading her with powder tins, muskets, bags of biscuits, 
kegs of pork, a cask of cognac, and my invaluable 
medicine chest. 

In the meantime, the squire and the captain stayed 
on deck, and the latter hailed the coxswain, who was the 
principal man aboard. 

" Mr. Hands/'' he said, " here are two of us with a 
brace of pistols each. If any one of you six make a 
signal of any description, that man's dead/'' 

They were a good deal taken aback ; and, after a 

little consultation, one and all tumbled down the fore 

companion, thinking, no doubt, to take us on the rear. 

But when they saw Redruth waiting for them in the 

j 2 



132 TREASURE ISLAND. 

sparred gallery, they went about ship at once, and a head 
popped out again on deck. 

" Down, dog ! " cries the captain. 

And the head popped back again ; and we heard no 
more, for the time, of these six very faint-hearted 
seamen. 

By this time, tumbling things in as they came, we 
had the jolly-boat loaded as much as we dared. Joyce 
and I got out through the stern-port, and we made for 
shore again, as fast as oars could take us. 

This second trip fairly aroused the watchers along 
shore. u Lillibullero " was dropped again ; and just 
before we lost sight of them behind the little point, one 
of them whipped ashore and disappeared. I had half a 
mind to change my plan and destroy their boats, but I 
feared that Silver and the others might be close at 
hand, and all might very well be lost by trying for too 
much. 

We had soon touched land in the same place as 
before, and set to provision the block house. All three 
made the first journey, heavily laden, and tossed our 
stores over the palisade. Then, leaving Joyce to guard 
them — one man, to be sure, but with half a dozen 
muskets — Hunter and I returned to the jolly-boat, and 
loaded ourselves once more. So we proceeded without 
pausing to take breath, till the whole cargo was be- 
stowed, when the two servants took up their position 
in the block house, and I, with all my power, sculled 
back to the Hispaniola. 



HOW THE SHIP WAS ABANDONED. 133 

That we should have risked a second boat load seems 
more daring than it really was. They had the 
advantage of numbers, of course, but we had the 
advantage of arms. Not one of the men ashore had a 
musket, and before they could get within range for 
pistol shooting, we nattered ourselves we should 
be able to give a good account of a half-dozen at 
least. 

The squire was waiting for me at the stern window, 
all his faintness gone from him. He caught the painter 
and made it fast, and we fell to loading the boat for our 
very lives. Pork, powder, and biscuit was the cargo, 
with only a musket and a cutlass apiece for the squire 
and me and Redruth and the captain. The rest of the 
arms and powder we dropped overboard in two fathoms 
and a half of water, so that we could see the bright 
steel shining far below us in the sun, on the clean, 
sandy bottom. 

By this time the tide was beginning to ebb, and the 
ship was swinging round to her anchor. Voices were 
heard faintly halloaing in the direction of the two gigs; 
and though this reassured us for Joyce and Hunter, 
who were well to the eastward, it warned our party 
to be off. 

Redruth retreated from his place in the gallery, and 
dropped into the boat, which we then brought round to 
the ship's counter, to be handier for Captain Smollett. 

" Now men/' said he, " do you hear me ? " 

There was no answer from the forecastle. 



134 TREASURE ISLAND. 

" It's to you, Abraham Gray — it's to you I am 
speaking." 

Still no reply. 

" Gray/'' resumed Mr. Smollett, a little louder, " I am 
leaving this ship, and I order you to follow your captain. 
I know you are a good man at bottom, and I daresay 
not one of the lot of you's as bad as he makes out. I 
have my watch here in my hand; I give you thirty 
seconds to join me in." 

There was a pause. 

"Come, my fine fellow," continued the captain, 
" don't hang so long in stays. I'm risking my life, 
and the lives of these good gentlemen every second." 

There was a sudden scuffle, a sound of blows, and 
out burst Abraham Gray with a knife-cut on the side of 
the cheek, and came running to the captain, like a dog to 
the whistle. 

" I'm with you, sir/' said he. 

And the next moment he and the captain had 
dropped aboard of us, and we had shoved off and given 
way. 

We were clear out of the ship ; but not yet ashore in 
our stockade. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR : THE JOLLY- 
boat's LAST TRIP. 

This fifth, trip was quite different from any of the others. 
In the first place,, the little gallipot of a boat that we 
were in was gravely overloaded. Five grown men, and 
three of them — Trelawney, Redruth, and the captain — 
over six feet high, was already more than she was meant 
to carry. Add to that the powder, pork, and bread-bags. 
The gunwale was lipping astern. Several times we 
shipped a little water, and my breeches and the tails of 
my coat were all soaking wet before we had gone a 
hundred yards. 

The captain made us trim the boat, and we got her 
to lie a little more evenly. All the same, we were afraid 
to breathe. 

In the second place, the ebb was now making — a 
strong rippling current running westward through the 
basin, and then southward and seaward down the straits 
by which we had entered in the morning. Even the 
ripples were a danger to our overloaded craft ; but the 
worst of it was that we were swept out of our true 
course, and away from our proper landing-place behind 



136 TREASURE ISLAND. 

the point. If we let the current have its way we should 
come ashore beside the gigs, where the pirates might 
appear at any moment. 

" I cannot keep her head for the stockade, sir/ - ' said 
I to the captain. I was steering, while he and Redruth, 
two fresh men, were at the oars. "The tide keeps 
washing her down. Could you pull a little stronger ? " 

" Not without swamping the boat/'' said he. " You 
must bear up, sir, if you please — bear up until you see 
you're gaining."" 

I tried, and found by experiment that the tide kept 
sweeping us westward until I had laid her head due 
east, or just about right angles to the way we ought to 
go. 

" We'll never get ashore at this rate," said I. 

" If it's the onlv course that we can lie, sir, we must 
even lie it," returned the captain. u We must keep up- 
stream. You see, sir," he went on," if once we dropped 
to leeward of the landing-place, it's hard to say where 
we should get ashore, besides the chance of being 
boarded by the gigs; whereas, the way we go the 
current must slacken, and then we can dodge back 
along the shore." 

" The current's less a'ready, sir," said the man Gray, 
who was sitting in the fore-sheets ; " you can ease her 
off a bit." 

" Thank you, my man," said I, quite as if nothing 
had happened; for we had all quietly made up our 
minds to treat him like one of ourselves. 



THE JOLLY-BOAT'S LAST TRIP. 137 

Suddenly the captain spoke up again, and I thought 
his voice was a little changed. 
" The gun ! » said he. 

I ' I have thought of that/' said I, for I made sure 
he was thinking of a bomhardment of the fort. " They 
could never get the gun ashore, and if they did, they 
could never haul it through the woods/' 

II Look astern, doctor," replied the captain. 

We had entirely forgotten the long nine; and 
there, to our horror, were the five rogues busy about 
her, getting off her jacket, as they called the stout 
tarpaulin cover under which she sailed. Not only 
that, but it flashed into my mind at the same 
moment that the round shot and the powder for the 
gun had been left behind, and a stroke with an axe 
would put it all into the possession of the evil ones 
aboard. 

" Israel was Flint's gunner," said Gray, hoarsely. 

At any risk, we put the boat's head direct for the 
landing-place. By this time we had got so far out of 
the run of the current that we kept steerage way even 
at our necessarily gentle rate of rowing, and I could 
keep her steady for the goal. But the worst of it was, 
that with the course I now held, we turned our broadside 
instead of our stern to the Hispaniola, and offered a 
target like a barn door. 

I could hear, as well as see, that brandy-faced rascal, 
Israel Hands, plumping down a round-shot on the 
deck. 



138 TREASURE ISLAND. 

" Who's the best shot ? " asked the captain. 

" Mr. Trelawney, out and away/'' said I. 

" Mr. Trelawney, will you please pick me off one 
of these men, sir? Hands, if possible/' said the 
captain. 

Trelawney was as cool as steel. He looked to the 
priming of his gun. 

11 Now/' cried the captain, " easy with that gun, sir, 
or you'll swamp the boat. All hands stand by to trim 
her when he aims." 

The squire raised his gun, the rowing ceased, and 
we leaned over to the other side to keep the balance, 
and all was so nicely contrived that we did not ship a 
drop. 

They had the gun, by this time, slewed round upon 
the swivel, and Hands, who was at the muzzle with the 
rammer, was, in consequence, the most exposed. How- 
ever, we had no luck ; for just as Trelawney fifed, down 
he stooped, the ball whistled over him, and it was one 
of the other four who fell. 

The cry he gave was echoed, not only by his com v 
panious on board, but by a great number of voices from 
the shore, and looking in that direction I saw the other 
pirates trooping out from among the trees and tumbling 
into their places in the boats. 

" Here come the gigs, sir," said I. 

" Give way then," cried the captain. " We mustn't 
mind if we swamp her now. If we can't get ashore, 
all's up." 



139 



" Only one of the gigs is being manned, sir/' I 
added, " the crew of the other most likely going round 
by shore to cut us off/' 

" They'll have a hot run, sir," returned the captain. 
" Jack ashore, you know. It's not them I mind ; it's 
the round-shot. Carpet bowls ! My lady's maid 
couldn't miss. Tell us, squire, when you see the 
match, and we'll hold water." 

In the meanwhile we had been making headway at 
a good pace for a boat so overloaded, and we had shipped 
but little water in the process. We were now close in; 
thirty or forty strokes and we should beach her ; for the 
ebb had already disclosed a narrow belt of* sand below 
the clustering trees. The gig was no longer to be 
feared; the little point had already concealed it from 
our eyes. The ebb-tide, which had so cruelly de- 
layed us, was now making reparation, and delaying 
our assailants. The one source of danger was the 
gun. 

"If I durst," said the captain, "I'd stop and pick 
off another man." 

But it was plain that they meant nothing should 
delay their shot. They had never so much as looked at 
their fallen comrade, though he was not dead, and I 
could see him trying to crawl away. 

" Ready ! " cried the squire. 

" Hold ! " cried the captain, quick as an echo. 

And he and Redruth backed with a great heave that 
sent her stern bodily under water. The report fell 



140 TREASURE ISLAND. 

in at the sain© Instant of time. This was the first that 
Jim heard, the sound of the squire's shot not having 
reached him. Where the ball passed, not one of us 
precisely knew ; but I fancy it must have been over our 
heads, and that the wind of it may have contributed to 
our disaster. 

At any rate, the boat sank by the stern, quite 
gently, in three feet of water, leaving the captain and 
myself, facing each other, on our feet. The other three 
took complete headers, and came up again, drenched 
and bubbling. 

So far there was no great harm. No lives were lost, 
and we could wade ashore in safety. But there were all 
our stores at the bottom, and, to make things worse, 
only two guns out of five remained in a state for 
service. Mine I had snatched from my knees and 
held over my head, by a sort of instinct. As for 
the captain, he had carried his over his shoulder 
by a bandoleer, and, like a wise man, lock upper- 
most. The other three had gone down with the 
boat. 

To add to our concern, we heard voices already 
drawing near us in the woods along shore; and we had 
not only the danger of being cut off from the stockade 
in our half-crippled state, but the fear before us 
whether, if Hunter and Joyce were attacked by half 
a dozen, they would have the sense and conduct to stand 
firm. Hunter was steady, that we knew ; Joyce was a 
doubtful case — a pleasant, polite man for a valet, and 



141 



to brush one's clothes, but not entirely fitted for a man 
of war. 

With all this in our minds, we waded ashore as fast 
as we could, leaving behind us tJ*e poor jolly-boat, and 
a good half of all our powder and provisions. 






CHAPTER XVIII. 

NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR: END OF THE 
FIRST DAY'S FIGHTING. 

We made our best speed across the strip of wood that 
now divided us from the stockade ; and at every step 
we took the voices of the buccaneers rang nearer. Soon 
we could hear their footfalls as they ran, and the 
cracking of the branches as they breasted across a bit 
of thicket. 

I began to see we should have a brush for it in 
earnest, and looked to my priming. 

"Captain/'' said I, "Trelawney is the dead shot. 
Give him your gun ; his own is useless/'' 

They exchanged guns, and Trelawney, silent and 
cool as he had been since the beginning of the bustle, 
hung a moment on his heel to see that all was fit for 
service. At the same time, observing Gray to be 
unarmed, I handed him my cutlass. It did all our 
hearts good to see him spit in his hand, knit his brows, 
and make the blade sing through the air. It was plain 
from every line of his body that our new hand was 
worth his salt. 

Forty paces farther we came to the edge of the wood 



END OF THE FIRST T>AY f S FIGHTING. 143 

and saw the stockade in front of us. We struck the 
enclosure about the middle of the south side, and, 
almost at the same time, seven mutineers — Job Ander- 
son, the boatswain, at their head — appeared in full cry 
at the south western corner. 

They paused, as if taken aback; and before they 
recovered, not only the squire and I, but Hunter and 
Joyce from the block house, had time to fire. The 
four shots came in rather a scattering volley ; but they 
did the business : one of the enemy actually fell, and 
the rest, without hesitation, turned and plunged into 
the trees. 

After reloading, we walked down the outside of the 
palisade to see to the fallen enemy. He was stone dead 
— shot through the heart. 

We began to rejoice over our good success, when 
just at that moment a pistol cracked in the bush, a ball 
whistled close past my ear, and poor Tom Redruth 
stumbled and fell his length on the ground. Both the 
squire and I returned the shot ; but as we had nothing 
to aim at, it is probable we only wasted powder. Then 
we reloaded, and turned our attention to poor Tom. 

The captain and Gray were already examining him ; 
and I saw with half an eye that all was over. 

I believe the readiness of our return volley had scat- 
tered the mutineers once more, for we were suffered 
without further molestation to get the poor old game- 
keeper hoisted over the stockade, and carried, groaning 
and bleeding, into the log-house. 



144 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Poor old fellow, he had not uttered one word of sur- 
prise, complaint, fear, or even acquiescence, from the 
very beginning of our troubles till now, when we had 
laid him down in the log^-house to die. He had lain 
like a Trojan behind his mattress in the gallery ; he had 
followed every order silently, doggedly, and well ; he was 
the oldest of our party by a score of years ; and now, 
sullen, old, serviceable servant, it was he that was to 
die. 

The squire dropped down beside him on his knees 
and kissed his hand, crying like a child. 

" Be I going, doctor ? " he asked. 

" Tom, my man,'''' said I, u you're going home/'' 

"1 wish I had had a lick at them with the gun 
first," he replied. 

" Tom/'' said the squire, iC say you forgive me, won't 
you?" 

" Would that be respectful like, from me to you, 
squire ? n was the answer. u Howsoever, so be it, 
amen ! n 

After a little while of silence, he said he thought 
somebody might read a prayer. " If s the custom, sir," 
he added, apologetically. And not long after, without 
another word, he passed away. 

In the meantime the captain, whom I had observed 
to be wonderfully swollen about the chest and pockets, 
had turned out a great many various stores — the British 
colours, a Bible, a coil of stoutish rope, pen, ink, the 
log-book, and pounds of tobacco. He had found a 



145 



longish fir-tree lying felled and trimmed in the enclosure, 
and, with the help of Hunter, he had set it up at the 
corner of the log-house where the trunks crossed and 
made an angle. Then, climbing on the roof, he had 
with his own hand bent and run up the colours. 

This seemed mightily to relieve him. He re-entered 
the log-house, and set about counting up the stores, as 
if nothing else existed. * But he had an eye on Tom's 
passage for all that ; and as soon as all was over, came 
forward with another flag, and reverently spread it on 
the body. 

" Don't you take on, sir/' he said, shaking the 
squire's hand. " All's well with him ; no fear for 
a hand that's been shot down in his duty to captain 
and owner. It mayn't be good divinity, but it's a 
fact." 

Then he pulled me aside. 

"Dr. Livesey," he said, "in how many weeks do 
you and squire expect the consort ? " 

I told him it was a question, not of weeks, but 
of months ; that if we were not back by the end of 
August, Blandly was to send to find us; but neither 
sooner nor later. " You can calculate for yourself," 
I said. 

"Why, yes," returned the captain, scratching his 
head, "and making a large allowance, sir, for all 
the gifts of Providence, I should say we were pretty 
close hauled." 

" How do you mean?" I asked. 
E 



146 TREASURE ISLAND. 

" It's a pity, sir, we lost that second load. That's 
what I mean/'' replied the captain. " As for powder 
and shot, we'll do. But the rations are short, very 
short — so short, Doctor Livesey, that we're, perhaps, 
as well without that extra mouth." 

And he pointed to the dead body under the flag. 

Just then, with a roar and a whistle, a round shot 
passed high above the roof of the log-house and plumped 
far beyond us in the wood. 

' ' Oho ! " said the captain. " Blaze away ! You've 
little enough powder already my lads." 

At the second trial, the aim was better, and the ball 
descended inside the stockade, scattering a cloud of sand, 
but doing no further damage. 

" Captain," said the squire, u the house is quite 
invisible from the ship. It must be the flag they are 
aiming at. Would it not be wiser to take it in?" 

" Strike my colours !" cried the captain. " No, sir, 
not I ;" and, as soon as he had said the words, I think 
we all agreed with him. For it was not only a piece of 
stout, seamanly, good feeling; it was good policy 
besides, and showed our enemies that we despised 
their cannonade. 

All through the evening they kept thundering 
away. Ball after ball flew over or fell short, or kicked 
up the sand in the enclosure ; but they had to fire so 
hiffh that the shot fell dead and buried itself in the 
soft sand. We had no ricochet to fear; and though 
one popped in through the roof of the log-house and out 



147 



again through the floor, we soon got used to that sort of 
horse-play, and minded it no more than cricket. 

" There is one thing good about all this/' observed 
the captain : " the wood in front of us is likely 
clear. The ebb has made a good while ; our stores 
should be uncovered. Volunteers to go and bring in 
pork." 

Gray and Hunter were the first to come forward. 
Well armed, they stole out of the stockade ; but it 
proved a useless mission. The mutineers were bolder 
than we fancied, or they put more trust in Israel's 
gunnery. For four or five of them were busy carrying 
off our stores, and wading out with them to one of 
the gigs that lay close by, pulling an oar or so to 
hold her steady against the current. Silver was in 
the stern-sheets in command ; and every man of them 
was now provided with a musket from some secret 
magazine of their own. 

The captain sat down to his log, and here is the 
beginning of the entry : — 

"Alexander Smollett, master; David Livesey, 
ship's doctor ; Abraham Gray, carpenter's mate ; John 
Trelawney, owner ; John Hunter and Richard Joyce, 
owner's servants, landsmen — being all that is left 
faithful of the ship's company — with stores for ten 
days at short rations, came ashore this day, and flew 
British colours on the log-house in Treasure Island. 
Thomas Redruth, owner's servant, landsman, shot by 

the mutineers ; James Hawkins, cabin-boy " 

K % 



148 TREASURE ISLAND. 

And at the same time I was wondering over poor 
Jim Hawkins's fate. 

A hail on the land side. 

" Somebody hailing us/' said Hunter, who was on 
guard. 

' c Doctor ! squire ! captain ! Hullo, Hunter, is that 
you ? " came the cries. 

And I ran to the door in time to see Jim Hawkins, 
safe and sound, come climbing over the stockade. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

NARRATIVE RESUMED BY JIM HAWKINS: THE GARRISON 
IN THE STOCKADE. 

As soon as Ben Gunn saw the colours lie came to a halt, 
stopped me by the arm, and sat down. 

" Now/'' said he, " there's your friends, sure 
enough/' 

" Far more likely it's the mutineers/' I answered. 

M That ! ,J he cried. <c Why, in a place like this, 
where nobody puts in but gen'lemen of fortune, Silver 
would fly the Jolly Roger, you don't make no doubt of 
that. No; that's your friends. There's been blows, 
too, and I reckon your friends has had the best of it ; 
and here they are ashore in the old stockade, as was 
made years and years ago by Flint. Ah, he was the man 
to have a headpiece, was Flint ! Barring rum, his match 
were never seen. He were afraid of none, not he ; on'y 
Silver — Silver was that genteel." 

" Well," said I, " that may be so, and so be it; all 
the more reason that I should hurry on and join my 
friends." 

" Nay, mate," returned Ben, " not you. You're a 
good boy, or I'm mistook ; but you're on'y a boy, all 



150 TREASURE ISLAND. 

told. Now, Ben Gunn is fly. Rum wouldn't bring 
me there, where you're going — not rum wouldn't, till I 
see your born gen'lenian, and gets it on his word of 
honour. And you won't forget my words : e A precious 
sight (that's what you'll say), a precious sight more 
confidence ' — and then nips him." 

And he pinched me the third time with the same air 
of cleverness. 

" And when Ben Gunn is wanted, you know where 
to find him, Jim. Just wheer you found him to-day. 
And him that comes is to have a white thing in his 
hand : and he's to come alone. Oh ! and you'll say 
this : f Ben Gunn,' says you, f has reasons of his 
own.' " 

" Well," said I, "I believe I understand. You have 
something to propose, and you wish to see the squire or 
the doctor ; and you're to be found where I found you. 
Is that all?" 

" And when ? says you," he added. " Why, from 
about noon observation to about six bells." 

' ' Good," said I, " and now may I go ? " 

" You won't forget ? " he inquired, anxiously. 
x* Precious sight, and reasons of his own, says you. 
Reasons of his own; that's the mainstay; as between 
man and man. Well, then " — still holding me — " I 
reckon you can go, Jim. And, Jim, if you was to see 
Silver, you wouldn't go for to sell Ben Gunn? wild 
horses wouldn't draw it from you? No, says 
you. And if them pirates camp ashore, Jim, what 



THE GAERISON IN THE STOCKADE. 151 

would you say but there'd be widders in the morn- 
ing?" 

Here lie was interrupted by a loud report, and a 
cannon ball came tearing through the trees and pitched 
in the sand, not a hundred yards from where we two 
were talking. The next moment each o£ us had taken 
to his heels in a different direction. 

For a good hour to come frequent reports shook the 
island, and balls kept crashing through the woods. I 
moved from hiding-place to hiding-place, always pursued, 
or so it seemed to me, by these terrifying missiles. But 
towards the end of the bombardment, though still I durst 
not venture in the direction of the stockade, where the 
balls fell oftenest, I had begun, in a manner, to pluck up 
my heart again ; and after a Jong detour to the east, 
crept down among the shore-side trees. 

The sun had just set, the sea breeze was rustling 
and tumbling in the woods, and ruffling the. grey 
surface of the anchorage; the tide, too, was far 
out, and great tracts of sand lay uncovered ; the air, 
after the heat of the day, chilled me through my 
jacket. 

The Eisjpaniola still lay where she had anchored; 
but, sure enough, there was the Jolly Koger — the black 
nag of piracy — flying from her peak. Even as I looked, 
there came another red flash and another report, that 
sent the echoes clattering, and one more round shot 
whistled through the air. It was the last of the 
cannonade. 






152 TREASURE ISLAND. 

I lay for some time, watching the bustle which suc- 
ceeded the attack. Men were demolishing something 
with axes on the beach near the stockade; the poor 
jolly-boat, I afterwards discovered. Away, near the 
mouth of the river, a great fire was glowing among the 
trees, and between that point and the ship one of the 
gigs kept coming and going, the men, whom I had seen 
so gloomy, shouting at the oars like children. But 
there was a sound in their voices which suggested 
rum. 

At length I thought I might return towards the 
stockade. I was pretty far down on the low, sandy spit 
that incloses the anchorage to the east, and is joined at 
half-water to Skeleton Island ; and now, as I rose to my 
feet, I saw, some distance farther down the spit, and 
rising from among low bushes, an isolated rock, pretty 
high, and peculiarly white in colour. It occurred to me 
that this might be the white rock of which Ben Gunn 
had spoken, and that some day or other a boat might, 
be wanted, and I should know where to look for 
one. 

Then I skirted among the woods until I had 
regained the rear, or shoreward side, of the stockade, 
and was soon warmly welcomed by the faithful 
party. 

I had soon told my story, and began to look about 
me. The log-house was made of unsquared trunks of 
pine — roof, walls, and floor. The latter stood in several 
places as much as a foot or a foot and a half above the 



THE GARRISON IN THE STOCKADE. 153 

surface of the sand. There was a porch at the door, and 
under this porch the little spring welled up into an 
artificial basin of a rather odd kind — no other than a 
great ship's kettle of iron, with the bottom knocked out, 
and sunk " to her bearings/' as the captain said, among 
the sand. 

Little had been left beside the framework of the 
house ; but in one corner there was a stone slab laid 
down by way of hearth, and an old rusty iron basket to 
contain the fire. 

The slopes of the knoll and all the inside of the 
stockade had been cleared of timber to build the house, 
and we could see by the stumps what a fine and lofty 
grove had been destroyed. Most of the soil had been 
washed away or buried in drift after the removal of the 
trees; only where the streamlet ran down from the 
kettle a thick bed of moss and some ferns and little 
creeping bushes were still green among the sand. Very 
close around the stockade — too close for defence, they 
said — the wood still flourished high and dense, all of fir 
on the land side, but towards the sea with a large 
admixture of live-oaks. 

The cold evening breeze, of which I have spoken, 
whistled through every chink of the rude building, and 
sprinkled the floor with a continual rain of fine sand. 
There was sand in our eyes, sand in our teeth, sand in 
our suppers, sand dancing in the spring at the bottom of 
the kettle, for all the world like porridge beginning to 
boil. Our chimney was a square hole in the roof; it 



154 TREASURE ISLAND. 

was but a little part of the smoke that found its way 
out, and the rest eddied about the house, and kept us 
coughing and piping the eye. 

Add to this that Gray, the new man, had his face 
tied up in a bandage for a cut he had got in breaking 
away from the mutineers ; and that poor old Tom 
Redruth, still unburied, lay along the wall, stiff and 
stark, under the Union Jack. 

If we had been allowed to sit idle, we should all 
have fallen in the blues but Captain Smollett was never 
the man for that. All hands were called up before him, 
and he divided us into watches. The doctor, and Gray, 
and I, for one ; the squire, Hunter, and Joyce, upon the 
other. Tired though we all were, two were sent out 
for firewood ; two more were set to dig a grave for 
Redruth ; the doctor was named cook ; I was put sentry 
at the door ; and the captain himself went from one to 
another, keeping up our spirits and lending a hand 
wherever it was wanted. 

From time to time the doctor came to the door 
for a little air and to rest his eyes, which were almost 
smoked out of his head ; and whenever he did so, he had 
a word for me. 

" That man Smollett/'' he said once, " is a better 
man than I am. And when I say that it means a 
deal, Jim/' 

Another time he came and was silent for a while. 
Tnen he put his head on one side, and looked at 
me. 



THE GARRISON IN THE STOCKADE. 155 

" Is this Ben Gunn a man? ; ' he asked. 

" I do not know, sir/'' said I. <{ I am not very sure 
whether he's sane/'' 

" If there's any doubt about the matter, he is/' 
returned the doctor. "A man who has been three 
years biting his nails on a desert island, Jim, can't 
expect to appear as sane as you or me. It doesn't 
lie in human nature. Was it cheese you said he had 
a fancy for?" 

" Yes, sir, cheese," I answered. 

"Well, Jim," says he, u just see the good that 
comes of being dainty in your food. You've seen my 
snuff-box, haven't you? And you never saw me 
take snuff ; the reason being that in my snuff-box 
I carry a piece of Parmesan cheese — a cheese made 
in Italy, very nutritious. Well, that's for Ben 
Gunn!" 

Before supper was eaten we buried old Tom in 
the sand, and stood round him for a while bare-headed 
in the breeze. A good deal of firewood had been 
got in, but not enough for the captain's fancy; and 
he shook his head over it, and told us we " must get 
back to this to-morrow rather livelier." Then, when 
we had eaten our pork, and each had a good stiff 
glass of brandy grog, the three chiefs got together 
in a corner to discuss our prospects. 

It appears they were at their wit's end what to 
do, the stores being so low that we must have been 
starved into surrender long before help came. But 



156 TREASURE ISLAND. 

our best hope, it was decided, was to kill off the 
buccaneers until they either hauled down their flag 
or ran away with the Hispaniola. From nineteen 
they were already reduced to fifteen, two others 
were- wounded, and one, at least — the man shot 
beside the gun — severely wounded, if he were not 
dead. Every time we had a crack at them, we were 
to take it, saving our own lives, with the extremest 
care. And, besides that, we had two able allies — rum 
and the climate. 

As for the first, though we were about half a mile 
away, we could hear them roaring and singing late 
into the night ; and as for the second, the doctor staked 
his wig that, camped where they were in the marsh, 
and unprovided with remedies, the half of them would 
be on their backs before a week. 

" So/' he added, " if we are not all shot down first 
they'll be glad to be packing in the schooner. It's 
always a ship, and they can get to buccaneering again, 
I suppose." 

" First ship that ever I lost/' said Captain 
Smollett. 

I was dead tired, as you may fancy; and when I 
got to sleep, which was not till after a great deal of 
tossing, I slept like a log of wood. 

The rest had long been up, and had already 
breakfasted and increased the pile of firewood by 
about half as much again, when I was wakened by 
a bustle and the sound of voices. 



THE GARRISON IN THE STOCKADE. 157 

u Flag of truce V I heard some one say; and then, 
immediately after, with a cry of surprise, " Silver 
himself!" 

And, at that, up I jumped, and, rubbing my eyes, 
ran to a loophole in the wall. 



CHAPTER XX. 



Sure enough, there were two men just outside the 
stockade, one of them waving a white cloth ; the 
other, no less a person than Silver himself, standing 
placidly by. 

It was still quite early, and the coldest morning that 
I think I ever was abroad in ; a chill that pierced into 
the marrow. The sky was bright and cloudless over- 
head, and the tops of the trees shone rosily in the sun. 
But where Silver stood with his lieutenant all was still 
in shadow, and they waded knee deep in a low, white 
vapour, that had crawled during the night out of the 
morass. The chill and the vapour taken together told a 
poor tale of the island. It was plainly a damp, feverish, 
unhealthy spot. 

te Keep indoors, men/ 3 said the captain. u Ten to 
one this is a trick/'' 

Then he hailed the buccaneer. 

a Who goes ? Stand, or we fire."" 

" Flag of truce/' cried Silver. 

The captain was in the porch, keeping himself* care- 
fully out of the way of a treacherous shot should any be 
intended. He turned and spoke to us : — 



silver's embassy. 159 

1 ' Doctor's watch on the look out. Dr. Livesey take 
the north side, if you please; Jim, the east; Gray, 
west. The watch below, all hands to load muskets. 
Lively, men, and careful." 

And then he turned again to the mutineers. 

" And what do you want with your flag of truce ? " 
he cried. 

This time it was the other man who replied. 

"Cap'n Silver, sir, to come on board and make 
terms,'" he shouted. 

"Cap'n Silver! Don't know him. Who's he?" 
cried the captain. And we could hear him adding to 
himself : " Cap'n, is it ? My heart, and here's pro- 
motion ! " 

Long John answered for himself. 

"Me, sir. These poor lads have chosen me cap'n, 
after your desertion, sir " — laying a particular emphasis 
upon the word " desertion." " We're willing to submit, 
if we can come to terms, and no bones about it. All I 
ask is your word, Cap'n Smollett, to let me safe and 
sound out of this here stockade, and one minute to get 
out o' shot before a gun is fired." 

u My man," said Captain Smollett, " I have not the 
slightest desire to talk to you. If you wish to talk to 
me, you can come, that's all. If there's any treachery, 
it '11 be on your side, and the Lord help you." 

"That's enough, cap'n," shouted Long John, 
cheerily. " A word from you's enough. I know a 
gentleman, and you may lay to that." 



160 TREASURE ISLAND. 

We could see the man who carried the flag of truce 
attempting to hold Silver back. Nor was that wonderful, 
seeing how cavalier had been the captain's answer. But 
Silver laughed at him aloud, and slapped him on the 
back, as if the idea of alarm had been absurd. Then he 
advanced to the stockade, threw over his crutch, got 
a leg up, and with great vigour and skill succeeded in 
surmounting the fence and dropping safely to the other 
side. 

I will confess that I was far too much taken up with 
what was going on to be of the slightest use as sentry; 
indeed, I had already deserted my eastern loophole, and 
crept up behind the captain, who had now seated him- 
self on the threshold, with his elbows on his knees, his 
head in his hands, and his eyes fixed on the water, as it 
bubbled out of the old iron kettle in the sand. He was 
whistling to himself, " Come, Lasses and Lads/'' 

Silver had terrible hard work getting up the knoll. 
What with the steepness of the incline, the thick tree 
stumps, and the soft sand, he and his crutch were as 
helpless as a ship in stays. But he stuck to it like a 
man in silence, and at last arrived before the captain, 
whom he saluted in the handsomest style. ' He was 
tricked out in his best ; an immense blue coat, thick 
with brass buttons, hung as low as to his knees, and a 
fine laced hat was set on the back of his head. 

" Here you are, my man/' said the captain, raising 
his head. " You had better sit down/'' 

c ' You aint a-going to let me inside, cap'n ? ** com- 



161 



plained Long John. " It's a main cold morning, to be 
sure, sir, to sit outside upon the sand."" 

"Why, Silver/'' said the captain, "if you had 
pleased to be an honest man, you might have been 
sitting in your galley. It's your own doing. You're 
either my ship's cook — and then }'ou were treated hand- 
some — or Cap'n Silver, a common mutineer and pirate, 
and then you can go hang ! " 

" Well, well, cap'n," returned the sea cook, sitting 
down as he was bidden on the sand, " you'll have to give 
me a hand up again, that's all. A sweet pretty place 
you have of it here. Ah, there's Jim ! The top of 
the morning to you, Jim. Doctor, here's my service. 
Why, there you all are together like a happy family, in 
a manner of speaking." 

" If you have anything to say, my man, better say 
it," said the captain. 

"Eight you were, Cap'n Smollett," replied Silver. 
" Dooty is dooty, to be sure. Well, now, you look here, 
that was a good lay of yours last night. I don't deny 
it was a good lay. Some of you pretty handy with 
a handspike-end. And I'll not deny neither but what 
some of my people was shook — maybe all was shook; 
maybe I was shook myself ; maybe that's why I'm here 
for terms. But you mark me, cap'n, it won't do twice, 
by thunder! We'll have to do sentry-go, and ease off: a 
point or so on the rum. Maybe you think we were all 
a sheet in the wind's eye. But I'll tell you I was sober ; 
I was on'y dog tired ; and if I'd awoke a second sooner 

L 



162 TREASURE ISLAND. 

I'd a' caught you at the act, I would. He wasn't dead 
when I got round to him, not he." 

" Well ? " says Captain Smollett, as cool as can be. 

All that Silver said was a riddle to him, but you 
would never have guessed it from his tone. As for me, 
I began to have an inkling. Ben Gunn's last words 
came back to my mind. I began to suppose that he had 
paid the buccaneers a visit while they all lay drunk 
together round their fire, and I reckoned up with glee 
that we had only fourteen enemies to deal with. 

"Well, here it is/' said Silver. "We want that 
treasure, and we'll have it — that's our point ! You 
would just as soon save your lives, I reckon; and that's 
yours. You have a chart, haven't you ? " 

" That's as may be," replied the captain. 

' ( Oh, well, you have, I know that/' returned Long 
John. " You needn't be so husky with a man ; there 
aint a particle of service in that, and you may lay to it. 
W r hat I mean is, we want your chart. Now, I never 
meant you no harm, myself." 

" That won't do with me, my man," interrupted the 

captain. "We know exactly what you meant to do, 

and we don't care; for now, you see, you can't do 

it." 

And the captain looked at him calmly, and proceeded , 

to fill a pipe. 

"If Abe Gray " Silver broke out. 

"Avast there!" cried Mr. Smollett. "Gray told 
me nothing, and I asked him nothing ; and what's mora I 



silver's embassy. ■ 163 

would see you and liim and this whole island blown 
clean out of the water into blazes first. So there's my 
mind for you, my man, on that/' 

This little whiff of temper seemed to cool Silver 
down. He had been growing nettled before, but now 
he pulled himself together. 

" Like enough/'' said he. " I would set no limits to 
what gentlemen might consider shipshape, or might not, 
as the case were. And, seein' as how you are about to 
take a pipe, cap'n, I'll make so free as do likewise." 

And he filled a pipe and lighted it ; and the two 
men sat silently smoking for quite a while, now looking 
each other in the face, now stopping their tobacco, now 
leaning forward to spit. It was as good as the play to 
see them. 

" Now," resumed Silver, " here it is. You give us 
the chart to get the treasure by, and drop shooting poor 
seamen, and stoving of their heads in while asleep. You 
do that, and we'll offer you a choice. Either you come 
aboard along of us, once the* treasure shipped, and then 
I'll give you my affy-davy, upon my word of honour, to 
clap you somewhere safe ashore. Or, if that aint to 
your fancy, some of my hands being rough, and having 
old scores, on account of hazing, then you can stay here, 
you can. We'll divide stores with you, man for man ; 
and I'll give my affy-davy, as before, to speak the first ship 
I sight, and send 'em here to pick you up. Now you'll 
own that's talking. Handsomer you couldn't look to 
get* not you. And I hope'' — raising his voice — "that 
L 2 



164 TREASURE ISLAND. 

all hands in this here block-house will overhaul my 
words, for what is spoke to one is spoke to all." 

Captain Smollett rose from his seat, and knocked out 
the ashes of his pipe in the palm of his left hand. 

" Is that all ? " he asked. 

" Every last word, by thunder ! " answered John. 
" Refuse that, and you've seen the last of me but 
musket-balls/'' 

"Very good/'' said the captain. "Now you'll hear 
me. If you'll come up one by one, unarmed, I'll engage 
to clap you all in irons, and take you home to a fair trial 
in England. If you won't, my name is Alexander 
Smollett, I've flown my sovereign's colours, and I'll 
see you all to Davy Jones. You can't find the treasure. 
You can't sail the ship — there's not a man among you 
fit to sail the ship. You can't fight us — Gray, there, 
got away from five of you. Your ship's in irons, Master 
Silver; you're on a lee shore, and so you'll find. I 
stand here and tell you so; and they're the last good 
words you'll get from me; for, in the name of heaven, 
I'll put a bullet in your back when next I meet you. 
Tramp, my lad. Bundle out of this, please, hand over 
hand, and double quick.'"' 

Silver's face was a picture; his eyes started in his 
head with wrath. He shook the fire out of his pipe. 

" Give me a hand up ! " he cried. 

" Not I," returned the captain. 

"Who'll give me a hand up? " he roared. 

Not a man among us moved. Growling the foulest 



silver's embassy. 165 

imprecations, he crawled along the sand till he got 
hold of the porch and could hoist himself again upon 
his crutch. Then he spat into the spring. 

" There!" he cried, "that's what I think of ye. 
Before an hour's out, I'll stove in your old block-house 
like a rum puncheon. Laugh, by thunder, laugh ! 
Before an hour's out, ye'll laugh upon the other side. 
Them that die '11 be the lucky ones." 

And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off, ploughed 
down the sand, was helped across the stockade, after 
four or five failures, by the man with the flag of 
truce, and disappeared in an instant afterwards among 
the trees. 



CHAPTER XXL 

THE ATTACK. 

As soon as Silver disappeared, the captain, who had 
been closely watching him, turned towards the interior 
of the house, and found not a man of us at his post Lut 
Gray. It was the first time we had ever seen him 
angry. 

" Quarters ! " he roared. And then, as we all slunk 
back to our places, " Gray," he said, " I'll put your 
name in the log ; you've stood by your duty like a 
seaman. Mr. Trelawney, Fin surprised at yon, sir. 
Doctor, I thought you had worn the king's coat ! If 
that was how you served at Fontenoy, sir, you'd have 
been better in your berth.'''' 

The doctor's watch were all back at their loopholes, 
the rest were busy loading the spare muskets, and every 
one with a red face, you may be certain, and a flea in 
his ear, as the saying is. 

The captain looked on for a while in silence. Then 
he spoke. 

" My lads," said he, " Fve given Silver a broadside. 
I pitched it in red-hot on purpose; and before the 
hour's out, as he said, we shall be boarded. We're 



THE ATTACK. 167 

outnumbered., I needn't tell you that, but we fight 
in shelter ; and, a minute ago, I should have said we 
fought with discipline. I've no manner of doubt that 
we can drub them, if you choose/'' 

Then he went the rounds, and saw, as he said, that 
all was clear. 

On the two short sides of the house, east and west, 
there were only two loopholes ; on the south side where 
the porch was, two again ; and on the north side, five. 
There was a round score of muskets for the seven of 
us ; the firewood had been built into four piles — tables, 
you might say — one about the middle of each side, and 
on each of these tables some ammunition and four 
loaded muskets were laid ready to the hand of the 
defenders. In the middle, the cutlasses lay ranged. 

' ' Toss out the fire/' said the captain ; the chill is 
past, and we mustn't have smoke in our eyes." 

The iron fire basket was carried bodily out by Mr. 
Trelawney, and the embers smothered among sand. 

" Hawkins hasn't had his breakfast. Hawkins, 
help yourself, and back to your post to eat it," con- 
tinued Captain Smollett. " Lively, now, my lad ; you'll 
want it before you've done. Hunter, serve out a round 
of brandy to all hands." 

And while this was going on, the captain completed, 
in his own mind, the plan of the defence. 

"Doctor, you will take the door," he resumed. 
" See, and don't expose yourself ; keep within, and fire 
through the porch. Hunter, take the east side, there. 



1C8 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Joyce, you stand by the west, my man. Mr. Trelawney, 
you are the best shot — you and Gray will take this long 
north side, with the five loopholes ; it's there the danger 
is. If they can get up to it, and fire in upon us 
through our own ports, things would begin to look 
dirty. Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account 
at the shooting; we'll stand by to load and bear a 
hand/' 

As the captain had said, the chill was past. As 
soon as the sun had climbed above our girdle of trees, 
it fell with all its force upon the clearing, and drank 
up the vapours at a draught. Soon the sand was 
baking, and the resin melting in the logs of the block- 
house. Jackets and coats were flung aside; shirts 
thrown open at the neck, and rolled up to the shoulders; 
and we stood there, each at his post, in a fever of heat 
and anxiety. 

An hour passed away. 

" Hang them ! " said the captain. " This is as dull 
as the doldrums. Gray, whistle for a wind." - 

And just at that moment came the first news of the 
attack. 

" If you please, sir/' said Joyce, " if I see any one 
am I to fire ? " 

" I told you so ! " cried the captain. 

" Thank you, sir," returned Joyce, with the same 
quiet civility. 

Nothing followed for a time ; but the remark had 
set us all on the alert, straining ears and eyes — the 



THE ATTACK. 169 

musketeers with their pieces balanced in their hands, 
the captain out in the middle of the block-house, with 
his mouth very tight and a frown on his face. 

So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped 
up his musket and fired. The report had scarcely died 
away ere it was repeated and repeated from without 
in a scattering volley, shot behind shot, like a string 
of geese, from every side of the enclosure. Several 
bullets struck the log-house, but not one entered ; 
and, as the smoke cleared away and vanished, the 
stockade and the woods around it looked as quiet and 
empty as before. Not a bough waved, not the gleam 
of a musket-barrel betrayed the presence of our foes. 

" Did you hit your man ? ** asked the captain. 

" No, sir/' replied Joyce. " I believe not, sir. - " 

"Next best thing to tell the truth," muttered 
Captain Smollett. " Load his gun, Hawkins. How 
many should you say there were on your side, doctor?" 

" I know precisely," said Dr. Livesey. " Three 
shots were fired on this side. I saw the three flashes 
— two close together — one farther to the west." 

" Three ! " repeated the captain. ' ' And how many 
on yours, Mr. Trelawney ? " 

But this was not so easily answered. There had 
come many from the north — seven, by the squire's 
computation ; eight or nine, according to Gray. From 
the east and west only a single shot had been fired. It 
was plain, therefore, that the attack would be developed 
from the north, and that on the other three sides we 



170 TREASURE ISLAND. 

were only to be annoyed by a show of hostilities. But 
Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements. 
If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he 
argued, they would take possession of any unprotected 
loophole, and shoot us down like rats in our own strong- 
hold. 

Nor had we much time left to us for thought. 
Suddenly, with a loud huzza, a little cloud of pirates 
leaped from the woods on the north side, and ran 
straight on the stockade. At the same moment, the fire 
was once more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball 
sang through the doorway, and knocked the doctor's 
musket into bits. 

The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys. 
Squire and Gray fired again and yet again ; three men 
fell, one forwards into the enclosure, two back on the 
outside. But of these, one was evidently more frightened 
than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a crack, and 
instantly disappeared among the trees. 

T\vo had bit the dust, one had fled, four had made 
good their footing inside our defences ; while from the 
shelter of the woods seven or eight men, each evidently 
supplied with several muskets, kept up a hot though 
useless fire on the log-house. 

The four who had boarded made straight before 
them for the building, shouting as they ran, and the 
men among the trees shouted back to encourage them. 
Several shots were fired; but, such was the hurry of 
the marksmen, that not one appears to have taken 



THE ATTACK. 171 

effect. In a moment,, the four pirates had swarmed up 
the mound and were upon us. 

The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared 
at the middle loophole. 

" At 'em, all hands — all hands ! " he roared, in a 
voice of thunder. 

At the same moment, another pirate grasped 
Hunter's musket by the muzzle, wrenched it from his 
hands, plucked it through the loophole, and, with one 
stunning blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the 
floor. Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all round 
the house, appeared suddenly in the doorway, and fell 
with his cutlass on the doctor. 

Our position was utterly reversed. A moment since 
we were firing, under cover, at an exposed enemy; now 
.it was we who lay uncovered, and could not return a 
blow. 

The log-house was full of smoke, to which we owed 
our comparative safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes 
and reports of pistol shots, and one loud groan, rang in 
my ears. 

" Out, lads, out, and fight 'em in the open ! Cut- 
lasses ! " cried the captain. 

I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and some one, at 
the same time snatching another, gave me a cut across 
the knuckles which I hardly felt. I dashed out of the 
door into the clear sunlight. Some one was close be- 
hind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor 
was nursuing his assailant down the hill, and, just as 



172 TREASURE ISLAND. 

my eyes fell upon him, beat down his guard, and sent 
him sprawling on his back, with a great slash across the 
face. 

" Round the house, lads ! round the house ! " cried 
the captain ; and even in the hurly-burly I perceived a 
change in his voice. 

Mechanically, I obeyed, turned eastwards, and with 
my cutlass raised, ran round the corner of the house. 
Next moment I was face to face with Anderson. He 
roared aloud, and his hanger went up above his head, 
flashing in the sunlight. I had not time to be afraid, 
but, as the blow still hnng impending, leaped in a trice 
upon one side, and missing my foot in the soft sand, 
rolled headlong down the slope. 

When I had first sallied from the door, the other 
mutineers had been already swarming up the palisade, 
to make an end of us. One man, in a red night- cap, 
with his cutlass in his mouth, had even got upon the 
top and thrown a leg across. Well, so short had been 
the interval, that when I found my feet again all was 
in the same posture, the fellow with the red night- 
cap still half way over, another still just showing his 
head above the top of the stockade. And yet, in this 
breath of time, the fight was over, and the victory was 
ours. 

Gray, following close behind me, had cut down 
the big boatswain ere he had time to recover from 
his lost blow. Another had been shot at a loophole 
in the very act of firing into the house, and now 



THE ATTACK. 173 

lay in agony , the pistol still smoking in his hand. A 
third, as I had seen, the doctor had disposed of at a 
blow. Of the four who had scaled the palisade, one 
only remained unaccounted for, and he, having left 
his cutlass on the field, was now clambering out again 
with the fear of death upon him. 

" Fire — fire from the house V* cried the doctor. 
" And you, lads, back into cover/'' 

But his words were unheeded, no shot was fired, 
and the last boarder made good his escape, and 
disappeared with the rest into the wood. In three 
seconds nothing remained of the attacking party but 
the five who had fallen, four on the inside, and one 
on the outside, of the palisade. 

The doctor and Gray and I ran full speed for 
shelter. The survivors would soon be back where they 
had left their muskets, and at any moment the fire 
might recommence. 

The house was by this time somewhat cleared o£ 
smoke, and we saw at a glance the price we had paid 
for victory. Hunter lay beside his loophole, stunned; 
Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move 
again ; while right in the centre, the squire was sup- 
porting the captain, one as pale as the other. 

" The captain's wounded/'' said Mr. Trelawney. 

" Have they run?" asked Mr. Smollett. 

"All that could, you maybe bound/'' returned the 
doctor ; " but there's five of them will never run again." 

" Five ! " cried the captain. " Come, that's better. 



174 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Five against three leaves us four to nine. That's better 
odds than we had at starting. We were seven to 
nineteen then, or thought we were, and that's as bad 
to bear.""* 

* The mutineers were soon only eight in number, for the 
man shot by Mr. Trelawney on board the schooner died that 
same evening of his wound. But this was, of course, not 
known till after by the faithful party. 



Papt V. 

MY SEA ADVENTURE. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

HOW MY SEA ADVENTURE BEGAN. 

There was no return of the mutineers — not so much 
as another shot out of the woods. They had " got their 
rations for that day/' as the captain put it, and we 
had the place to ourselves and a quiet time to over- 
haul the wounded and get dinner. Squire and I cooked 
outside in spite of the danger, and even outside we 
could hardly tell what we were at, for horror of the 
loud groans that reached us from the doctor's patients. 

Out of the eight men who had fallen in the 
action, only three still breathed — that one of the 
pirates who had been shot at the loophole, Hunter, 
and Captain Smollett; and of these the first two 
were as good as dead; the mutineer, indeed, died 
under the doctor's knife, and Hunter, do what we 
could, never recovered consciousness in this world. 
He lingered all day, breathing loudly like the old 
buccaneer at home in his apoplectic fit ; but the bones 



176 TREASURE ISLAND. 

of his chest had been crushed by the blow and his 
skull fractured in falling, and some time in the 
following night, without sign or sound, he went to 
his Maker. 

As for the captain, his wounds were grievous 
indeed, but not dangerous. No organ was fatally 
injured. Anderson' s ball — for it was Job that shot 
him first — had broken his shoulder-blade and touched 
the lung, not badly ; the second had only torn and 
displaced some muscles in the calf. He was sure to 
recover, the doctor said, but, in the meantime and 
for weeks to come, he must not walk nor move his 
arm, nor so much as speak when he could help 
it. 

My own accidental cut across the knuckles was a 
flea-bite. Doctor Livesey patched it up with plaster, 
and pulled my ears for me into the bargain. 

After dinner the squire and the doctor sat by the 
captain's side a while in consultation ; and when they 
had talked to their hearts' content, it being then a little 
past noon, the doctor took up his hat and pistols, girt 
on a cutlass, put the chart in his pocket, and with a 
musket over his shoulder, crossed the palisade on the 
north side, and set off briskly through the trees. 

Gray and I were sitting together at the far end of 
the block-house, to be out of earshot of our officers con- 
sulting ; and Gray took his pipe out of his mouth and 
fairly forgot to put it back again, so thunder-struck he 
was at this occurrence. 



HOW MY SEA ADVENTURE BEGAN. 177 

" Why, in the name of Davy Jones/'' said he, " is 
Dr. Livesey mad ? " 

"Why, no/'' says I. " He's about the last of this 
crew for that, I take it." 

"Well, shipmate/'' said Gray, "mad he may not be; 
but if he's not, you mark my words, / am." 

"I take it/' replied I, "the doctor has his idea; 
and if I am right, he's going now to see Ben 
Gunn." 

I was right, as appeared later ; but, in the meantime, 
the house being stifling hot, and the little patch of sand 
inside the palisade ablaze with midday sun, I began to 
get another thought into my head, which was not by 
any means so right. What I began to do was to envy 
the doctor, walking in the cool shadow of the woods, with 
the birds about him, and the pleasant smell of the pines, 
while I sat grilling, with my clothes stuck to the hot 
resin, and so much blood about me, and so many poor 
dead bodies lying all around, that I took a disgust of the 
place that was almost as strong as fear. 

All the time I was washing out the block-house, and 
then washing up the things from dinner, this disgust 
and envy kept growing stronger and stronger, till at 
last, being near a bread-bag, and no one then observing 
me, I took the first step towards my escapade, and filled 
both pockets of my coat with biscuit. 

I was a fool, if you like, and certainly I was going 
to do a foolish, over-bold act ; but I was determined 
to do it with all the precautions in my power. 



178 TREASURE ISLAND. 

These biscuits, should anything befall me, would keep 
me, at least, from starving till far on in the next 
day. 

The next thing I laid hold of was a brace of pistols, 
and as I already had a powder-horn and bullets, I felt 
myself well supplied with arms. 

As for the scheme I had in my head, it was not a 
bad one in itself. I was to go down the sandy spit 
that divides the anchorage on the east from the open 
sea, find the white rock I had observed last evening, 
and ascertain whether it was there or not that Ben 
Gunn had hidden his boat ; a thing quite worth doing, 
as I still believe. But as I was certain I should not be 
allowed to leave the enclosure, my only plan was to take 
French leave, and slip out when nobody was watching; 
and that was so bad a way of doing it as made the thing 
itself wrong. But I was only a boy, and I had made 
my mind up. 

Well, as things at last fell out, I found an admirable 
opportunity The squire and Gray were busy helping 
the captain with his bandages; the coast was clear; 
I made a bolt for it over the stockade and into the 
thickest of the trees, and before my absence was observed 
I was out of cry of my companions. 

This was my second folly, far worse than the first, 
as I left but two sound men to guard the house ; but 
like the first, it was a help towards saving all of 
us. 

I took my way straight for the east coast of the 



HOW LO SEA ADVENTURE BEGAN. 179 

island, for I was determined to go down the, sea side of 
the spit to avoid all chance of observation from the an- 
chorage. It was already late in the afternoon, although 
still warm and sunny. As I continued to thread the tall 
woods I could hear from far before me not only the con- 
tinuous thunder of the surf, but a certain tossing of 
foliage and grinding of boughs which showed me the 
sea breeze had set in higher than usual. Soon cool 
draughts of air began to reach me; and a few steps 
farther I came forth into the open borders of the grove, 
and saw the sea lying blue and sunny to the horizon, 
and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the 
beach. 

I have never seen the sea quiet round Treasure 
Island. The sun might blaze overhead, the air be with- 
out a breath, the surface smooth and blue, but still 
these great rollers would be running along all the 
external coast, thundering and thundering by day and 
night; and I scarce believe there is one spot in the 
island where a man would be out of earshot of their 
noise. 

I walked along beside the surf with great enjoy- 
ment, till, thinking I was now got far enough to the 
south, I took the cover of some thick bushes, and crept 
warily up to the ridge of the spit. 

Behind me was the sea, in front the anchorage. 

The sea breeze, as though it had the sooner blown itself 

out by its unusual violence, was already at an end; it 

had been succeeded by light, variable airs from the south 

m 2 



180 TREASTJKE ISLAND. 

and south-east, carrying great banks of fog; and the 
anchorage, under lee of Skeleton Island, lay still and 
leaden as when first we entered it. The Hispaniofa , in 
that unbroken mirror, was exactly portrayed from the 
truck to the water-line, the Jolly Roger hanging from 
her peak. 

Alongside lay one of the gigs, Silver in the stern- 
sheets — him I could always recognise — while a couple 
of men were leaning over the stern bulwarks, one of 
them with a red cap — the very rogue that I had seen some 
hours before stride-legs upon the palisade. Apparently 
they were talking and laughing, though at that dis- 
tance — upwards of a mile — I could, of course, hear no 
word of what was said. All at once, there began the 
most horrid, unearthly screaming, w 1 ich at first startled 
me badly, though I had soon remembered the voice of 
Captain Flint, and even thought I could make out the 
bird by her bright plumage as she sat perched upon 
her master's wrist. 

Soon after the jolly-boat shoved off and pulled 
for shore, and the man with the red cap and his 
comrade went below by the cabin companion. 

Just about the same time the sun had gone down 
behind the Spy-glass, and as the fog was collecting 
rapidly, it began to grow dark in earnest. I saw 
I must lose no time if I were to find the boat that 
evening. 

The white rock, visible enough above the brush, was 
still some eighth of a mile further down the spit, and it 



HOW MY SEA ADVENTURE BEGAN. 181 

took me a goodish while to get up with, it, crawling, 
often on all-fours, among the scrub. Night had almost 
come when I laid my hand on its rough sides. Right 
below it there was an exceedingly small hollow of green 
turf, hidden by banks and a thick underwood about 
knee-deep, that grew there very plentifully ; and in the 
centre of the dell, sure enough, a little tent of goat- 
skins, like what the gipsies carry about with them in 
England. 

I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent, 
and there was Ben Gunn's boat — home-made if ever 
anything was home-made : a rude, lop-sided framework 
of tough wood, and stretched upon that a covering of 
goat-skin, with the hair inside. The thing was ex- 
tremely small, even for me, and I can hardly imagine 
that it could have floated with a full-sized man. 
There was one thwart set as low as possible, a kind 
of stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle for pro- 
pulsion. 

I had not then seen a coracle, such as the ancient 
Britons made, but I have seen one since, and I can give 
you no fairer idea of Ben Gunn's boat than by saying 
it was like the first and the worst coracle ever made by 
man. But the great advantage of the coracle it 
certainly possessed, for it was exceedingly light and 
portable. 

Well, now that I had found the boat, you would 
have thought I had had enough of truantry for once ; 
but, in the meantime, I had taken another notion, and 



182 TREASURE ISLAND. 

become so obstinately fond of it, that I would have 
carried it out, I believe, in the teeth of Captain Smollett 
himself. This was to slip out under cover of the night, 
cut the Hisjjaniola adrift, and let her go ashore where 
she faucied. I had quite made up my mind that the 
mutineers, after their repulse of the morning, had 
nothing nearer their hearts than to up anchor and away 
to sea ; this, I thought, it would be a fine thing to 
prevent, and now that I had seen how they left their 
watchmen unprovided with a boat, I thought it might be 
done with little risk. 

Down I sat to wait for darkness, and made a hearty 
meal of biscuit. It was a night out of ten thousand for 
my purpose. The fog had now buried all heaven. As 
the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared, 
absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island. 
And when, at last, I shouldered the coracle, and groped 
my way stumblingly out of the hollow wlfere I had 
supped, there were but two points visible on the whole 
anchorage. 

One was the great fire on shore, by which the 
defeated pirates lay carousing in the swamp. The 
other, a mere blur of light upon the darkness, indicated 
the position of the anchored ship. She had swung 
round to the ebb — her bow was now towards me — the 
only lights on board were in the cabin ; and what I saw 
was merely a reflection on the fog of the strong rays 
that flowed from the stern window. 

The ebb had already run some time, and I had to 



HOW MY SEA ADVENTURE BEGAN. 183 

wade through . a long belt of swampy sand, where I 
sank several times above the ankle,, before I came to 
the edge of the retreating water, and wading a little way 
in, with some strength and dexterity, set my coracle 
keel downwards, on the surface. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE EBB-TIDE RUNS. 

The coracle — as I had ample reason to know before I 
was done with her — was a very safe boat for a person of 
my height and weight, both buoyant and clever in a 
seaway ; but she was the most cross-grained lop-sided 
craft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always made 
more leeway than anything else, and turning round and 
round was the manoeuvre she was best at. Even Ben 
Gunn himself has admitted that she was " queer to 
handle till you knew her way/' 

Certainly I did not know her way. She turned in 
every direction but the one I was bound to go ; the most 
part of the time we were broadside on, and I am very 
sure I never should have made the ship at all but for the 
tide. By good fortune, paddle as I pleased, the tide was 
still sweeping me down ; and there lay the Hispaniola 
right in the fair way, hardly to be missed. 

First she loomed before me like a blot of something 
yet blacker than darkness, then her spars and hull began 
to take shape, and the next moment, as it seemed (for, 
the further I went, the brisker grew the current of the 
ebb), I was alongside of her hawser, and had laid hold. 



THE EBB-TIDE RUNS. 185 

The hawser was as taut as a bowstring-, and the cur- 
rent so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round 
the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled 
and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut 
with my sea-gully, and the Hispaniola would go hum- 
ming down the tide. 

So far so good ; but it next occurred to my recollec- 
tion that a taut hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as 
dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to one, if I were 
so foolhardy as to cut the Hispaniola from her anchor, 
I and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the 
water. 

This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had 
not again particularly favoured me, I should have had 
to abandon my design. But the light airs which had 
begun blowing from the south-east and south had 
hauled round after nightfall into the south-west. 
Just while I was meditating, a puff came, caught the 
Hispaniola, and forced her up into the current; and 
to my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my 
grasp, and the hand by which I held it dip for a second 
under water. 

With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, 
opened it with my teeth, and cut one strand after 
another, till the vessel swung only by two. Then I 
lay quiet, waiting to sever these last when the strain 
should be once more lightened by a breath of wind. 

All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices 
from the cabin ; but, to say truth, my mind had been 



186 TREASURE ISLAND. 

so entirely taken up with other thoughts that I had 
scarcely given ear. Now, however, when I had nothing 
else to do, I began to pay more heed. 

One I recognised for the coxswain's, Israel Hands, 
that had been Flint's gunner in former days. The other 
was", of course, my friend of the red night -cap. Both 
men were plainly the worse of drink, and they were 
still drinking ; for, even while I was listening, one of 
them, with a drunken cry, opened the stern window 
and threw out something, which I divined to be an 
empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy ; it was 
plain that they were furiously angry. Oaths flew 
like hailstones, and every now and then there came 
forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end 
in blows. But each time the quarrel passed off, and 
the voices grumbled lower for a while, until the next 
crisis came, and, in its turn, passed away without re- 
sult. 

On shore, I could see the glow of the great camp 
fire burning warmly through the shore-side trees. Some 
one was singing, a dull, old, droning sailor's song, with 
a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse, and 
seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the 
singer. I had heard it on the voyage more than once, 
and remembered these words : — 

" But one man of her crew alive, 
What put to sea with seventy- five." 

And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appro- 



THE EBB-TIDE RUNS. 187 

priate for a company that had met such cruel losses 
in the morning. But, indeed, from what I saw, all 
these buccaneers were as callous as the sea they sailed 
on. 

At last the breeze came ; the schooner sidled and 
drew nearer in the dark ; I felt the hawser slacken 
once more, and with a good, tough effort, cut the last 
fibres through. 

The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and I 
was almost instantly swept against the bows of the 
Hispaniola. At the same time the schooner began to 
turn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end, across 
the current. 

I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment 
to be swamped ; and since I found I could not push the 
coracle directly off, I now shoved straight astern. At 
length I was clear of my dangerous neighbour ; and just 
as I gave the last impulsion, my hands came across a 
light cord that was trailing overboard across the stern 
bulwarks. Instantly I grasped it. 

Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It 
was at first mere instinct ; but once I had it in my 
hands and found it fast, curiosity began to get the 
upper hand, and I determined I should have one look 
through the cabin window. 

I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and, when 
I judged myself near enough, rose at infinite risk to 
about half my height, and thus commanded the roof 
and a slice of the interior of the cabin. 



188 TKEASUEE ISLAND. 

By this time the schooner and her little consort 
were gliding* pretty swiftly through the water ; indeed, 
we had already fetched up level with the camp fire. 
The ship was talking, as sailors say, loudly, treading 
the innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering 
splash; and until I got my eye above the window-sill 
I could not comprehend why the watchmen had taken 
no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient ; and 
it was only one glance that I durst take from that 
unsteady skiff. It showed me Hands and his companion 
locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a hand 
upon the other's throat. 

I dropped upon the thwart again, none too soon, 
for I was near overboard. I could see nothing for the 
moment, but these two furious, encrimsoned faces, 
swaying together under the smoky lamp; and I shut 
my eyes to let them grow once more familiar with 
the darkness. 

The endless ballad had come to an end at last, 
and the whole diminished company about the camp 
fire had broken into the chorus I had heard so often : — 

" Fifteen men on the dead man's chest — 
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum ! 
Drink and the devil had done for the rest — 
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum ! '" 

I was just thinking how busy drink and the devil 
were at that very moment in the cabin of the Hi$pa?iiola, 
when I was surprised by a sudden lurch of the coracle. 
At the same moment she yawed sharply and seemed 






THE EBB-TIDE RUNS. 189 

to change her course. The speed in the meantime 
had strangely increased. 

I opened my eyes at once. All round me were 
little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling 
sound and slightly phosphorescent. The Hispaniola 
herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being 
whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and 
I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of 
the night ; nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she 
also was wheeling to the southward. 

I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped 
against my ribs. There, right behind me, was the glow 
of the camp fire. The current had turned at right 
angles, sweeping round along with it the tall schooner 
and the little dancing coracle ; ever quickening, ever 
bubbling higher, ever muttering louder, it went spinning 
through the narrows for the open sea. 

Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave a violent 
yaw, turning, perhaps, through twenty degrees; and 
almost at the same moment one shout followed 
another from on board ; I could hear feet pounding 
on the companion ladder ; and I knew that the two 
drunkards had at last been interrupted in their quarrel 
and awakened to a sense of their disaster. 

I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched 
skiff, and devoutly recommended my spirit to its 
Maker. At the end of the straits, I made sure we 
must fall into some bar of raging breakers, where all 
my troubles would be ended speedily ; and though I 



190 TREASURE ISLAND. 

could, perhaps, bear to die, I could not bear to look 
upon my fate as it approached. 

So I must have lain for hours, continually beaten 
to and fro upon the billows, now and again wetted 
with flying' sprays, and never ceasing to expect death 
at the next plunge. Gradually weariness grew upon 
me; a numbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon my 
mind even in the midst of my terrors ; until sleep at 
last supervened, and in my sea-tossed coracle I lay and 
dreamed of home and the old " Admiral Benbow." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE CRUISE OF THE CORACLE. 

It was broad day when I awoke, and found myself 
tossing at the south-west end of Treasure Island. The 
sun was up, but was still hid from me behind the great 
bulk of the Spy-glass, which on this side descended 
almost to the sea in formidable cliffs. 

Haulbowline Head and Mizzen-mast Hill were at 
my elbow ; the hill bare and dark, the head bound with 
cliffs forty or fifty feet high, and fringed with great 
masses of fallen rock. I was scarce a quarter of a mile 
to seaward, and it was my first thought to paddle in and 
land. 

That notion was soon given over. Among the fallen 
rocks the breakers spouted and beliowed ; loud rever- 
berations, heavy sprays flying and falling, succeeded one 
another from second to second ; and I saw myself, if I 
ventured nearer, dashed to death upon the rough shore, 
or spending my strength in vain to scale the beetling 
crags. 

Nor was that all ; for crawling together on flat tables 
of rock, or letting themselves drop into the sea with 
loud reports, I beheld huge slimy monsters — soft snails, 



19£ TREASURE ISLAND. 

as it were, of incredible bigness — two or three score 
of them together, making the rocks to echo with their 
barkings. 

I have understood since that they were sea lions, 
and entirely harmless. But the look of them, added to 
the difficulty of the shore and the high running* of the 
surf, was more than enough to disgust me of that landing 
place. I felt willing rather to starve at sea than to 
confront such perils. 

In the meantime I had a better chance, as I supposed, 
before me. North of Haulbowline Head, the land runs 
in a long way, leaving, at low tide, a long stretch of 
yellow sand. To the north of that, again, there comes 
another cape — Cape of the Woods, as it was marked 
upon the chart — buried in tall green pines, which 
descended to the margin of the sea. 

I remembered what Silver had said about the current 
that sets northward along the whole west coast of 
Treasure Island ; and seeing from my position that I was 
already under its influence, I preferred to leave Haulbow- 
line Head behind me, and reserve my strength for an 
attempt to land upon the kindlier-looking Cape of the 
Woods. 

There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea. The 
wind blowing steady and gentle from the south, there 
was no contrariety between that and the current, and the 
billows rose and fell unbroken. 

Had it been otherwise, I must long ago have 
perished; but as it was, it is surprising how easily 



THE CRUISK OF THE CORACLE. 193 

and securely my little and light boat could ride. Often, 
as I still lay at the bottom, and kept no more than an 
eye above the gunwale, I would see a big blue summit 
heaving close above me; yet the coracle would but bounce 
a little, dance as if on springs, and subside on the other 
side into the trough as lightly as a bird. 

I began after a little to grow very bold, and sat up 
to try my skill at paddling. But even a small change 
in the disposition of the weight will produce violent 
changes in the behaviour of a coracle. And I had 
hardly moved before the boat, giving up at once her 
gentle dancing movement, ran straight down a slope of 
water so steep that it made me giddy, and struck her 
nose, with a spout of spray, deep into the side of the 
next wave. 

I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly back 
into my old position, whereupon the coracle seemed to 
find her head again, and led me as softly as before 
among the billows. It was plain she was not to be 
interfered with, and at that rate, since I could in no way 
influence her course, what hope had I left of reaching 
land? 

I began to be horribly frightened, but I kept my 
head, for all that. First, moving with all care, I 
gradually baled out the coracle with my sea-cap ; then 
getting my eye once more above the gunwale, I set 
myself to study how it was she managed to slip so 
quietly through the rollers. 

I found each wave, instead of the big, smooth 

N 



194 TREASURE ISLAND. 

glossy mountain it looks from shore, or from a vessel's 
deck, was for all the world like any range of hills on the 
dry land, full of peaks and smooth places and valleys. 
The coracle, left to herself, turning from side to side, 
threaded, so to speak, her way through these lower parts, 
and avoided the steep slopes and higher, toppling sum- 
mits of the wave. 

" Well, now/' thought I to myself, " it is plain 
I must lie where I am, and not disturb the balance; 
but it is plain, also, that I can put the paddle over the 
side, and from time to time, in smooth places, give 
her a shove or two towards land.'"' No sooner thought 
upon than done. There I lay on my elbows, in the 
most trying attitude, and every now and again gave a 
weak stroke or two to turn her head to shore. 

It was very tiring, and slow work, yet I did visibly 
gain ground; and, as we drew near the Cape of the 
Woods, though I saw I must infallibly miss that point, 
I had still made some hundred yards of easting. I was, 
indeed, close in. I could see the cool, green tree-tops 
swaying together in the breeze, and I felt sure I should 
make the next promontory without fail. 

It was high time, for I now began to be tortured 
with thirst. The glow of the sun from above, its 
thousandfold reflection from the waves, the sea-water 
that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with 
salt, combined to make my throat burn and my brain 
ache. The sight of the trees so near at hand had almost 
made me sick with longing ; but the current had soon 



THE CRUISE OF THE CORACLE. 195 

carried me past the point; and, as the next reach of 
sea opened out, I beheld a sight that changed the nature 
of my thoughts. 

Right in front of me, not half a mile away, I 
beheld the Hispaniola under sail. I made sure, of 
course, that I should be taken; but I was so dis- 
tressed for want of water, that I scarce knew whether 
to be glad or sorry at the thought ; and, long before 
I had come to a conclusion, surprise had taken entire 
possession of my mind, and I could do nothing but 
stare and wonder. 

The Hispaniola was under her main-sail and two jibs, 
and the beautiful white canvas shone in the sun like 
snow or silver. When I first sighted her, all her sails 
were drawing ; she was lying a course about north-west ; 
and I presumed the men on board were going round the 
island on their way back to the anchorage. Presently 
she began to fetch more and more to the westward, so 
that I thought they had sighted me and were going about 
in chase. At last, however, she fell right into the wind's 
eye, was taken dead aback, and stood there a while 
helpless, with her sails shivering. 

" Clumsy f ellows," said I ; " they must still be 
drunk as owls." And I thought how Captain Smollett 
would have set them skipping. 

Meanwhile, the schooner gradually fell off, and filled 
again upon another tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or 
so, and brought up once more dead in the wind's eye. 
Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and 



196 TREASURE ISLAND. 

down, north, south, east, and west, the Hispaniola sailed 
by swoops and dashes, and at each repetition ended as 
she had begun, with illy-flapping canvas. It became 
plain to me that nobody was steering. And, if so, where 
were the men ? Either they were dead drunk, or had 
deserted ber, I thought, and perhaps if I could get on 
board, I might return the vessel to her captain. 

The current was bearing coracle and schooner south- 
ward at an equal rate. As for the latter' s sailing, it 
was so wild and intermittent, and she hung each time so 
long in irons, that she certainly gained nothing, if she 
did not even lose. If only I dared to sit up and paddle, 
I made sure that I could overhaul her. The scheme had 
an air of adventure that inspired me, and the thought of 
the water breaker beside the fore companion doubled my 
growing courage. 

Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by another 
cloud of spray, but this time stuck to my purpose ; and 
set myself, with all my strength and caution, to paddle 
after the unsteered Hispaniola. Once I shipped a sea 
so heavy that I had to stop and bail, with my heart 
fluttering like a bird ; but gradually I got into the way 
of the thing, and guided my coracle among the waves, 
with only now and then a blow upon her bows and a 
dash of foam in my face. 

I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner; I could 
see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about; 
and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not 
choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men 



THE CRUISE OF TIIE COIIACLE. 197 

were lying drunk below, where I might batten them 
down, perhaps, and do what I chose with the ship. 

For some time she had been doing the worse thing 
possible for me — standing still. She headed nearly due 
south, yawing, of course, all the time. Each time she 
fell off her sails partly filled, and these brought her, in a 
moment, right to the wind again. I have said this was 
the worst thing possible for me ; for helpless as she 
looked in this situation, with the canvas cracking like 
cannon, and the blocks trundling and banging on the 
deck, she still continued to run away from me, not only 
with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount 
of her leeway, which was naturally great. 

But now, at last, I had my chance. The breeze fell, 
for some seconds, very low, and the current gradually 
turning her, the HUjpaniola revolved slowly round her 
centre, and at last presented me her stern, with the 
cabin window still gaping open, and the lamp over the 
table still burning on into the day. The main-sail 
hung drooped like a banner. She was stock-still, but 
for the current. 

For the last little while I had even lost ; but now, 
redoubling my efforts, I began once more to overhaul 
the chase. 

I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind 
came again in a clap ; she filled on the port tack, 
and was off again, stooping and skimming like a 
swallow. 

My first impulse was one of despair, but my second 






198 TREASURE ISLAND. 

was towards joy. Round she came, till she was broad- 
side on to me — round still till she had covered a half, 
and then two-thirds, and then three-quarters of the 
distance that separated us. I could see the waves 
boiling white under her forefoot. Immensely tall she 
looked to me from my low station in the coracle. 

And then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend. I 
had scarce time to think — scarce time to act and save 
myself. I was on the summit of one swell when the 
schooner came stooping over the next. The bowsprit 
was over my head. I sprang to my feet, and leaped, 
stamping the coracle under water. With one hand I 
caught the jib-boom, while my foot was lodged between 
tbe stay and the brace ; and as I still clung there 
panting, a dull blow told me that the schooner had 
charged down upon and struck the coracle, and that I 
was left without retreat on the Hhpaniola, 



CHAPTER XXV. 

I STRIKE THE JOLLY ROGER. 

I had scarce gained a position on the bowsprit, when 
the flying jib flapped and filled upon the other tack, 
with a report like a gun. The schooner trembled to her 
keel under the reverse ; but next moment, the other sails 
still drawing, the jib flapped back again, and hung idle. 

This had nearly tossed me off into the sea; and now 
I lost no time, crawled back along the bowsprit, and 
tumbled head foremost on the deck. 

I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the main- 
sail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a 
certain portion of the after-deck. Not a sold was to 
be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed 
since the mutiny, bore the print of many feet ; and an 
empty bottle, broken by the neck, tumbled to and fro 
like a live thing in the scuppers. 

Suddenly the Hupaniola came right into the wind. 
The jibs behind me cracked aloud ; the rudder slammed 
to ; the whole ship gave a sickening heave and shudder, 
and at the same moment the main-boom swung* in- 
board, the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed me 
the lee after-deck. 



200 TREASURE ISLAND. 

There were the two watchmen, sure enough : red- 
fpap on his back, as stiff as a handspike, with his 
arms stretched out like those of a crucifix, and his 
teeth showing through his open lips; Israel Hands 
propped against the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, 
his hands lying open before him on the deck, his face 
as white, under its tan, as a tallow candle. 

For a while the ship kept • bucking and sidling like 
a vicious horse, the sails filling, now on one tack, now 
on another, and the boom swinging to and fro till the 
mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again* 
too, there would come a cloud of light sprays over the 
bulwark, and a heavy blow of the ship's bows against 
the swell : so much heavier weather was made of it 
by this great rigged ship than by my home-made, 
lop-sided coracle, now gone to the bottom of the 
sea. 

At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to 
and fro ; but — what was ghastly to behold — neither his 
attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing grin was anyway 
disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump, too, 
Hands appeared still more to sink into himself and 
settle down upon the deck, his feet sliding ever the 
farther out, and the whole body canting towards the 
stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid from 
me ; and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear and 
the frayed ringlet of one whisker. 

At the same time,. I observed, around both of them, 
splashes of dark blood upon the planks, and began to 




" I walked aft until I reached the Mainmast. ' Come aboard, Mr. Hands,' 
I said, ironically." — Page 201. 



I STRIKE THE JOLLY ROGER. 201 

feel sure that they had killed each other in their 
drunken wrath. 

While I was thus looking and wondering, in a calm 
moment , when the ship was still, Israel Hands turned 
partly round, and, with a low moan, writhed himself 
back to the position in which I had seen him first. 
The moan, which told of pain and deadly weakness, 
and the way in which his jaw hung open, went right 
to my heart. But when I remembered the talk I 
had overheard from the apple barrel, all pity left 
me. 

I walked aft until I reached the main-mast. 

u Come aboard, Mr. Hands/'' I said, ironically. 

He rolled his eyes round heavily; but he was too 
far gone to express surprise. All he could do was to 
utter one word, "Brandy/'' 

It occurred to me there was no time to lose ; and, 
dodging the boom as it once more lurched across the 
deck, I slipped aft, and down the companion stairs into 
the cabin. 

It was such a scene of confusion as you can hardly 
fancy. All the lockfast places had been broken open in 
quest of the chart. The floor was thick with mud, 
where ruffians had sat down to drink or consult after 
n ling in the marshes round their camp. The bulk- 
heads, all painted in clear white, and beaded round with 
gilt, bore a pattern of dirty hands. Dozens of empty 
bottles clinked together in corners to the rolling of the 
ship. One of the doctor's medical books lay open on 



202 TREASURE ISLAND. 

the table, half of the leaves gutted out, I suppose, for 
pipelights. In the midst of all this the lamp still cast 
a smoky glow, obscure and brown as umber. 

I went into the cellar; all the barrels were gone, 
and of the bottles a most surprising number had 
been drunk out and thrown away. Certainly, since the 
mutiny began, not a man of them could ever have been 
sober. 

Foraging about, I found a bottle with some brandy 
left, for Hands; and for myself I routed out some 
biscuit, some pickled fruits, a great bunch of raisins, 
and a piece of cheese. With these I came on deck, put 
down my own stock behind the rudder head, and well 
out of the coxswain's reach, went forward to the water- 
breaker, ancLhad a good, deep drink of water, and then, 
and not till then, gave Hands the brandy. 

He must have drunk a gill before he took the bottle 
from his mouth. 

" Aye/'' said he, ' ' by thunder, but I wanted some o 3 
that ! " 

I had sat down already in my own corner and begun 
to eat. 

« Much hurt ? » I asked him. 

He grunted, or, rather, I might say, he barked. 

" If that doctor was aboard/' he said, u I'd be right 
enough in a couple of turns; but I don't have no man- 
ner of luck, you see, and that's what's the matter with 
me. As for that swab, he's good and dead, he is," he 
added, indicating the man with the red cap. " He 



I STEIKE THE JOLLY KOGER. 203 

warn't no seaman, anyhow. And where mought you 
have come from ? " 

" Well," said I, ' ' I've come aboard to take posses- 
sion of this ship, Mr. Hands ; and you'll please regard 
me as your captain until further notice." 

He looked at me sourly enough, but said nothing. 
Some of the colour had come back into his cheeks, 
though he still looked very sick, and still continued to 
slip out and settle down as the ship banged about. 

" By-the-by," I continued, " I can't have these 
colours, Mr. Hands ; and, by your leave, I'll strike 'em. 
Better none than these." 

And, again dodging the boom, I ran to the colour 
lines, handed down their cursed black flag, and chucked 
it overboard. 

" God save the king ! " said I, waving my cap ; 
" and there's an end to Captain Silver ! " 

He watched me keenly and slyly, his chin all the 
while on his breast. 

" I reckon," he said at last — " I reckon, Cap'n Haw- 
kins, you'll kind of want to get ashore, now. S'pose 
we talks." 

"Why, yes," says I, "with all my heart, Mr. Hands. 
Say on." And I went back to my meal with a good 
appetite. 

u This man," he began, nodding feebly at the corpse 
— "O'Brien were his name — a rank Irelander — this 
man and me got the canvas on her, meaning for to sail 
her back. Well, he's dead now, he is — as dead as bilge ; 



204 TREASURE ISLAND. 

and who's to sail this ship, I don't see. Without I 
gives you a hint, you aint that man, as far's I can tell. 
Now, look here, you gives me food and drink, and a old 
scarf or ankecher to tie my wound up, you do ; and I'll 
tell you how to sail her; and that's about square all 
round, I take it." 

' ' I'll tell you one thing," says I : u I'm not going 
back to Captain Kidd's anchorage. I mean to get into 
North Inlet, and beach her quietly there." 

" To be sure you did," he cried. (< Why, I aint sich 
an infernal lubber, after all. I can see, can't I ? I've 
tried my fling, I have, and I've lost, and it's you has 
the wind of me. North Inlet? Why, I haven't no 
ch'ice, not I ! I'd help you sail her up to Execution 
Dock, by thunder ! so I would." 

Well, as it seemed to me, there was some sense in 
this. We struck our bargain on the spot. In three 
minutes I had the Hispaniola sailing easily before the 
wind along the coast of Treasure Island, with good 
hopes of turning the northern point ere noon, and 
beating down again as far as North Inlet before high 
water, when we might beach her safely, and wait till 
the subsiding tide permitted us to land. 

Then I lashed the tiller and went below to my own 
chest, where I got a soft silk handkerchief of my 
mother's. With this, and with my aid, Hands bound 
up the great bleeding stab he had received in the thigh, 
and after he had eaten a little and had a swallow or two 
more of the brandy, he began to pick up visibly, sat 



I STRIKE THE JOLLY ROGER. 2UO 

straighter up, spoke louder and clearer, and looked in 
every way another man. 

The breeze served us admirably. We skimmed before 
it like a bird, the coast of the island flashing by, and the 
view changing every minute. Soon we were past the 
high lands and bowling beside low, sandy country, 
sparsely dotted with dwarf pines, and soon we were 
beyond that again, and had turned the corner of the 
rocky hill that ends the island on the north. 

I was greatly elated with my new command, and 
pleased with the bright, sunshiny weather and these 
different prospects of the coast. I had now plenty of 
water and good things to eat, and my conscience, which 
had smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted by 
the great conquest I had made. I should, I think, 
have had nothing left me to desire but for the eyes of the 
coxswain as they followed me derisively about the deck, 
and the odd smile that appeared continually on his face. 
It was a smile that had in it something both of pain and 
weakness — a haggard, old man's smile ; but there was, 
besides that, a grain of derision, a shadow of treachery, 
in his expression as he craftily watched, and watched, 
and watched me at my work. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ISEAEL HANDS. 

The wind, serving us to a desire, now hauled into the 
west. We could run so much the easier from the north- 
east corner of the island to the mouth of the North Inlet. 
Only, as we had no power to anchor, and dared not beach 
her till the tide had flowed a good deal farther, time 
hung on our hands. The coxswain told me how to 
lay the ship to ; after a good many trials I succeeded, 
and we both sat in silence, over another meal. 

" Cap'n," said he, at length, with that same un- 
comfortable smile, ci here's my old shipmate, O'Brien; 
s'pose you was to heave him overboard. I aint par- 
ticular as a rule, and I don't take no blame for settling 
his hash; but I don't reckon him ornamental, now, 
do you ? " 

' ' I'm not strong enough, and I don't like the job ; 
and there he lies, for me," said I. 

" This here's an unlucky ship — this Hisjoaniola, 
Jim," he went on, blinking. " There's a power of men 
been killed in this Hispaniola — a sight o' poor seamen 
dead and gone since you and me took ship to Bristol. I 
never seen sich dirty luck, not I. There was this here 



ISRAEL HANDS. 207 

O'Brien, now — he's dead, aint he ? Well, now, I'm no 
scholar, and you're a lad as can read and figure ; and, 
to put it straight, do you take it as a dead man is dead 
for good, or do he come alive again ? " 

"You can kill the body, Mr. Hands, but not the 
spirit ; you must know that already," I replied. 
" O'Brien there is in another world, and maybe watch- 
ing us." 

"Ah!" says he. "Well, that's unfort'nate— 
appears as if killing parties was a waste of time. How- 
somever, sperrits don't reckon for much, by what I've 
seen. I'll chance it with the sperrits, Jim. And now, 
you've spoke up free, and I'll take it kind if you'd 
step down into that there cabin and get me a — well, 
a — shiver my timbers ! I can't hit the name on 't ; 
well, you get me a bottle of wine, Jim — this here 
brandy's too strong for my head." 

Now, the coxswain's hesitation seemed to be un- 
natural; and as for the notion of his preferring wine 
to brandy, I entirely disbelieved it. The whole story 
was a pretext. He wanted me to leave the deck — so 
much was plain; but with what purpose I could in no 
way imagine, tlis eyes never met mine ; they kept 
wandering to and fro, up and down, now with a look 
to the sky, now with a flitting glance upon the dead 
O'Brien. All the time he kept smiling, and putting 
his tongue out in the most guilty, embarrassed manner, 
so that a child could have told that he was bent on 
some deception. I was prompt with my answer, how- 



208 TREASURE ISLAND. 

ever, for I saw where my advantage lay; and that 
with a fellow so densely stupid I could easily conceal 
my suspicions to the end. 

" Some wine ? " I said. " Far better. Will you 
have white or red ? " 

" Well,, 1 reckon it's about the blessed same to me, 
shipmate/' he replied ; " so it's strong, and plenty of 
it, what's the odds ? " 

"All right," I answered. " I'll bring you port, 
Mr. Hands. But I'll have to dig for it." 

With that I scuttled down the companion with all 
the noise I could, slipped off my shoes, ran quietly 
along the sparred gallery, mounted the forecastle ladder, 
and popped my head out of the fore companion. I knew 
he would not expect to see me there ; yet I took every 
precaution possible ; and certainly the worst of my 
suspicions proved too true. 

He had risen from his position to his hands and 
knees; and, though his leg obviously hurt him pretty 
sharply when he moved — for I could hear him stifle 
a groan — yet it was at a good, rattling rate that he 
trailed himself across the deck. In half a minute he 
had reached the port scuppers, and picked, out of a 
coil of rope, a loDg knife, or rather a short dirk, dis- 
coloured to the hilt with blood. He looked upon it 
for a moment, thrusting forth his under jaw, tried 
the point upon his hand, and then, hastily concealing 
it in the bosom of his jacket, trundled back again 
into his old place agaiust the bulwark. 



ISRAEL HANDS. 209 

This was all that I required to know. Israel 
could move about ; he was now armed ; and if he 
had been at so much trouble to get rid of me, it was 
plain that I was meant to be the victim. What he 
would do afterwards — whether he would try to crawl 
right across the island from North Inlet to the 
camp among the swamps, or whether he would fire 
Long Tom, trusting that his own comrades might 
come first to help him, was, of course, more than I 
could say. 

Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in one point, 
since in that our interests jumped together, and that 
was in the disposition of the schooner. We both 
desired to have her stranded safe enough, in a sheltered 
place, and so that, when the time came, she could be 
got off again with as little labour and danger as might 
be; and until that was done I considered that my 
life would certainly be spared. 

While I was thus turning the business over in 
my mind, I had not been idle with my body. I had 
stolen back to the cabin, slipped once more into my 
shoes, and laid my hand at random on a bottle of 
wine, and now, with this for an excuse, I made my 
re-appearance on the deck. 

Hands lay as I had left him, all fallen together in 
a bundle, and with his eyelids lowered, as though he 
were too weak to bear the light. He looked up, 
however, at my coming, knocked the neck off the 
bottle, like a man who had done the same thing 
o 






210 TREASURE ISLAND. 

• 

often, and took a good swig, with his favourite toast 
of " Here's luck!" Then he lay quiet for a little, 
and then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged me 
to cut him a quid. 

" Cut me a junk o' that," says he, " for I haven't 
no knife, and hardly strength enough, so be as I 
had. Ah, Jim, Jim, I reckon I've missed stays ! Cut 
me a quid, as '11 likely be the last, lad ; for I'm for 
my long home, and no mistake." 

" Well," said I, " I'll cut you some tobacco ; but 
if I was you and thought myself so badly, I would 
go to my prayers, like a Christian man." 

" "Why ?" said he. " Now, you tell me why." 

" Why ? " I cried. " You were asking me just 
now about the dead. You've broken your trust ; 
you've lived in sin and lies and blood; there's a man 
you killed lying at your feet this moment; and you 
ask me why ! For God's mercy, Mr. Hands, that's 
why." 

I spoke with a little heat, thinking of the bloody 
dirk he had hidden in his pocket, and designed, in his 
ill thoughts, to end me with. He, for his part, took a 
great draught of the wine, and spoke with the most 
unusual solemnity. 

" For thirty years/' he said, " I've sailed the seas, 
and seen good and bad, better and worse, fair weather 
and ioul, provisions running out, knives going, and 
what not. Well, now I tell you, I never seen good 
come o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my 



ISRAEL HANDS. 211 

fancy; dead. men don't bite; them's my views — amen, 
so be it. And now, you look here/'' he added, suddenly 
changing his tone, "we've had about enough of this 
foolery. The tide's made good enough by now. You 
just take my orders, Cap'n Hawkins, and we'll sail slap 
in and be done with it." 

All told, we had scarce two miles to run ; but the 
navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern 
anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east 
and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled 
to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, 
and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot ; 
for we went about and about, and dodged in, shaving 
. the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that were a 
pleasure to behold. 

Scarcely had we passed the heads before the land 
closed around us. The shores of North Inlet were as 
thickly wooded as those of the southern anchorage ; but 
the space was longer and narrower, and more like, what 
in truth it was, the estuary of a river. Right before us, 
at the southern end, we saw the wreck of a ship in the 
last stages of dilapidation. It had been a great vessel 
of three masts, but had lain so long exposed to the 
injuries of the weather, that it was hung about with great 
webs of dripping seaweed, and on the deck of it shore 
bushes had taken root, and now flourished thick with 
flowers. It was a sad sight, but it showed us that the 
anchorage was calm. 

" Now/' said Hands, " look there ; there's a pet bit 



212 TREASURE ISLAND. 

for to beach a ship in. Fine flat sand, never a catspaw, 
trees all around of it, and flowers a-blowing like a 
gaming on that old ship/'' 

u And once beached/-' I inquired, u how shall we get 
her off again ? " 

" "Why, so," he replied : " you take a line ashore 
there on the other side at low water : take a turn about 
one o* them big pines ; bring it back, take a turn round 
the. capstan, and lie-to for the tide. Come high water, 
all hands take a pull upon the line, and off she comes as 
sweet as natuV. And now, boy, you stand by. We're 
near the bit now, and she's too much way on her. 
Starboard a little — so — steady — starboard — larboard a 
little — steady — steady ! " 

So he issued his commands, which I breathlessly 
obeyed ; till, all of a sudden, he cried, " Now, my 
hearty, luff ! " And I put the helm hard up, and the 
Hispaniola swung round rapidly, and ran stem on for 
the low wooded shore. 

The excitement of these last manoeuvres had some- 
what interfered with the watch I had kept hitherto, 
sharply enough, upon the coxswain. Even then I was 
still so much interested, waiting for the ship to touch, 
that I had quite forgot the peril that hung over my 
bead, and stood craning over the starboard bulwarks and 
watching the ripples spreading wide before the bows. I 
might have fallen without a struggle for my life, had 
not a sudden disquietude seized upon me, and made me 
turn my head. Perhaps I had heard a creak, or seen 



ISRAEL HANDS. 213 

his shadow moving with the tail of my eye ; per- 
haps it was an instinct like a cat's ; but, sure 
enough, when I looked round, there was Hands, 
already half-way towards me, with the dirk in his 
right hand. 

We must both have cried out aloud when our eyes 
met; but while mine was the shrill cry of terror, his 
was a roar of fury like a charging bull's. At the same 
instant he threw himself forward, and I leapt sideways 
towards the bows. As I did so, I let go of the tiller, 
which sprang sharp to leeward ; and I think this saved 
my life, for it struck Hands across the chest, and stopped 
him, for the moment, dead. 

Before he could recover, I was safe out of the 
corner where he had me trapped, with all the deck to 
dodge about. Just forward of the mainmast I stopped, 
drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though 
he had already turned and was once more coming di- 
rectly after me, and drew the trigger. The hammer 
fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound; the 
priming was useless with sea water. I cursed myself 
for my neglect. Why had not I, long before, reprimed 
and reloaded my only weapons? Then I should not 
have been as now, a mere fleeing sheep before this 
butcher. 

Wounded as he was, it was wonderful how fast he 
could move, his grizzled hair tumbling over his face, and 
his face itself as red as a red ensign with his haste and 
fury. I had no time to try my other pistol, nor, indeed, 



214 TREASURE ISLAND. 

much inclination, Tor I was sure it would be useless. 

One thing I saw plainly: I must not simply retreat 
before him, or he would speedily hold me boxed into the 
hows, as a, moment since he had so nearly hoxed me in 

the stern. Once so caught, and nine or ten inches of 

the blood-stained dirk would be my last- experience on 
this side of eternity. 1 placed my palms against (he 
mainmast, which was of a goodish bigness, and waited, 
every nerve upon the stretch. 

Seeing that I meant to dodge, he also paused; and 
a moment or two passed in feints on his part, and 
corresponding movements upon mine. It was such a 
game as I had often played at home about the rocks of 
Black Hill Cove; hut never before, you may he sure, 
with such a wildly beating heart as now. Still, as I 
say, it was a boy's game, and J thought J could hold 
my own at it, against an elderly seaman with a wounded 
thigh. Indeed, my courage had begun to rise so high, 

thai 1 allowed myself a lew darting thoughts on what 
would he the end of the affair; and while I saw certainly 
that 1 could spin it out for long, I saw no hop< - any 

ultimate escape. 

Well, while things stood thus, suddenly the Hi.s- 
paniola struck, staggered, -round for an instant in the 

sand, and then, swift as a blow, canted over to the 
port, side, till the deck stood at- an angle of forty-live 
decrees, and about a puncheon of water splashed into 

the scupper holes, and lay, in a pool, between the deck 
and bulwark. 



ISRAEL HANDS. 215 

We were both of us capsized in a second, and both 
of us rolled, almost together, into the scuppers ; the 
dead red-cap, with his arms still spread out, tumbling 
stiffly after us. So near were we, indeed, that my 
head came against the coxswain's foot with a crack 
that made my teeth rattle. Blow and all, I was the 
first afoot again; for Hands had got involved with 
the dead body. The sudden canting of the ship had 
made the deck no place for running on; I had to find 
some new way of escape, and that upon the instant, 
for my foe was almost touching me. Quick as thought, 
I sprang into the mizzen shrouds, rattled up hand over 
hand, and did not draw a breath till I was seated on the 
cross-trees. 

I had been saved by being prompt ; the dirk had 
struck not half a foot below me, as I pursued my upward 
flight; and there stood Israel Hands with his mouth 
open and his face upturned to mine, a perfect statue 
of surprise and disappointment. 

Now that I had a moment to myself, I lost no time 
in changing the priming of my pistol, and then, having 
one ready for service, and to make assurance doubly 
sure, I proceeded to draw the load of the other, and 
recharge it afresh from the beginning. 

My new employment struck Hands all of a heap ; 
he began to see the dice going against him ; and after 
an obvious hesitation, he also hauled himself heavily 
into the shrouds, and, with the dirk in his teeth, began 
slowly and painfully to mount. It cost him no end of 



216 TREASURE ISLAND. 

time and groans to haul his wounded leg behind 
him; and I had quietly finished my arrangements 
before he was much more than a third of the way 
up. Then, with a pistol in either hand, I addressed 
him. 

"One more step, Mr. Hands/' said I, " and I'll 
blow your brains out ! Dead men don't bite, you 
know/' I added, with a chuckle. 

He stopped instantly. I could see by the working 
of his face that he was trying to think, and the pro- 
cess was so slow and laborious that, in my new-found 
security, I laughed aloud. At last, with a swallow 
or two, he spoke, his face still wearing the same ex- 
pression of extreme perplexity. In order to speak he 
had to take the dagger from his mouth, but, in all else, 
he remained unmoved. 

"Jim/' says he, "I reckon we're fouled, you and 
me, and we'll have to sign articles. I'd have had you 
but for that there lurch : but I don't have no luck, not 
I ; and I reckon I'll have to strike, which comes hard, 
you see, for a master mariner to a ship's younker like 
you, Jim." 

I was drinking in his words and smiling away, as 
conceited as a cock upon a wall, when, all in a breath, 
back went his right hand over his shoulder. Something 
sang like an arrow through the air ; I felt a blow and 
then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the 
shoulder to the mast. In the horrid pain and surprise 
of the moment — I scarce can say it was by my own 



ISRAEL HANDS. 217 

volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious aim — 
both my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my 
hands. They did not fall alone ; with a choked cry, the 



i ujjuii cue suiuuusj »jju piuiigeu 

head first into the water. 



coxswain loosed his grasp upon the shrouds, and plunged 



CHAPTER XXVII 



Owing to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out 
over the water, and from my perch on the cross-trees 
I had nothing below me but the surface of the bay. 
Hands, who was not so far up, was, in consequence, nearer 
to the ship, and fell between me and the bulwarks. He 
rose once to the surface in a lather of foam and blood, 
and then sank again for good. As the water settled, I 
could see him lying huddled together on the clean, 
bright sand in the shadow of the vessel's sides. A fish 
or two whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the 
quivering of the water, he appeared to move a little, as 
if he were trying to rise. But he was dead enough, for 
all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for 
fish in the very place where he had designed my 
slaughter. 

I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel 
sick, faint, and terrified. The hot blood was running 
over my back and chest. The dirk, where it had pinned 
my shoulder to the mast, seemed to burn like a hot iron; 
yet it was not so much these real sufferings that dis- 
tressed rne, for these, it seemed to me, I could bear 



219 



without a murmur ; it was the horror I had upon my 
mind of falling 1 from the cross-trees into that still green 
water, beside the body of the coxswain. 

I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I 
shut my eyes as if to cover up the peril. Gradually my 
mind came back again, my pulses quieted down to a 
more natural time, and I was once more in possession of 
myself. 

It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk ; but 
either it stuck too hard or my nerve failed me ; and I 
desisted with a violent shudder. Oddly enough, that 
very shudder did the business. The knife, in fact, had 
come the nearest in the world to missing me altogether ; 
it held me by a mere pinch of skin, and this the shudder 
tore away. The blood ran down the faster, to be sure ; 
but I was my own master again, and only tacked t6 the 
mast by my coat and shirt. 

These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and 
then regained the deck by the starboard shrouds. For 
nothing in the world would I have again ventured, 
shaken as I was, upon the overhanging port shrouds, 
from which Israel had so lately fallen. 

I went below, and did what I could for my wound ; 
it pained me a good deal, and still bled freely ; but it 
was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it greatly gall 
me when I used my arm. Then I looked around me, 
and as the ship was now, in a sense, my own, I began 
to think of clearing it from its last passenger — the dead 
man, O'Brien. 



220 TREASUEE ISLAND. 

He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, 
where he lay like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet; 
life-size, indeed, but how different from life's colour or 
life's comeliness! In that position, I could easily 
have my way with him ; and as the habit of tragical 
adventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead, 
I took him by the waist as if he had been a sack of bran, 
and, with one good heave, tumbled him overboard. He 
went in with a sounding plunge ; the red cap came off, 
and remained floating on the surface; and as soon as the 
splash subsided, I could see him and Israel lying side by 
side, both wavering with the tremulous movement of the 
water. O'Brien, though still quite a young man, was 
very bald. There he lay, with that bald head across 
the knees of the man who had killed him, and the 
quick fishes steering to and fro over both. 

I was now alone upon the ship; the tide had just 
turned. The sun was within so few degrees of setting 
that already the shadow of the pines upon the western 
shore began to reach right across the anchorage, and 
fall in patterns on the deck. The evening breeze had 
sprung up, and though it was well warded off by 
the hill with the two peaks upon the east, the cordage 
had begun to sing a little softly to itself and the idle 
sails to rattle to and fro. 

I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs 
I speedily doused and brought tumbling to the deck ; 
but the main-sail was a harder matter. Of course, 
when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung 



221 



out-board, and the cap of it and a foot or two of 
sail hung* even under water. I thought this made it 
still more dangerous ; yet the strain was so heavy that 
I half feared to meddle. At last, I got my knife and 
cut the halyards. The peak dropped instantly, a great 
belly of loose canvas floated broad upon the water ; 
and since, pull as I liked, I could not budge the 
downhall ; that was the extent of what I could 
accomplish. For the rest, the Hispaniola must trust 
to luck, like myself. 

By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into 
shadow — the last rays, I remember, falling through 
a glade of the wood, and shining bright as jewels, on 
the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill ; 
the tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner 
settling more and more on her beam-ends. 

I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed 
shallow enough, and holding the cut hawser in both 
hands for a last security, I let myself drop softly 
overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist ; 
the sand was firm and covered with ripple marks, and 
I waded ashore in great spirits, leaving the Hispaniola 
on her side, with her main-sail trailing wide upon 
the surface of the bay. About the same time the sun 
went fairly down, and the breeze whistled low in the 
dusk among the tossing pines. 

At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had 
I returned thence empty handed. There .lay the 
schooner, clear at last from buccaneers and ready for 



222 TREASURE ISLAND. 

our own men to board and get to sea again. I had 
nothing nearer my fancy than to get home to the 
stockade and boast of my achievements. Possibly I 
might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the re- 
capture of the Hisjoaniola was a clenching answer, and 
I hoped that even Captain Smollett would confess I 
had not lost my time. 

So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set 
my face homeward for the block -house and my com- 
panions. I remembered that the most easterly of the 
rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's anchorage ran 
from the two-peaked hill upon my left ; and I bent 
my course in that direction that I might pass the 
stream while it was small. The wood was pretty open, 
and keepiog along the lower spurs, I had soon turned 
the corner of that hill, and not long after waded to the 
mid-calf across the water-course. 

This brought me near to where I had encountered 
Ben Gunn, the maroon; and I walked more circumspectly, 
keeping an eye on every side. The dusk had come nigh 
hand completely, and, as I opened out the cleft between 
the two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow 
against the sky, where, as I judged, the man of the 
island was cooking his supper before a roaring fire. 
And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he should show 
himself so careless. For if I could see this radiance, 
mi^ht it not reach the eves of Silver himself where 
he camped upon the shore among the marshes ? 

Gradually the night fell blacker ; it was all I could 



223 



do to guide myself even roughly towards my destination ; 
the double hill behind me and the Spy-glass on my right 
hand loomed faint and fainter ; the stars were few and 
pale ; and in the low ground where I wandered I kept 
tripping among bushes and rolling into sandy pits. 

Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I 
looked up ; a pale glimmer of moonbeams had alighted 
on the summit of the Spy-glass, and soon after I saw • 
something broad and silvery moving low down behind 
the trees, and knew the moon had risen. 

With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what 
remained to me of my journey ; and, sometimes walking, 
sometimes running, impatiently drew near to the 
stockade. Yet, as I began to thread the grove that 
lies before it, I was not so thoughtless but that I 
slacked my pace and went a trifle warily. It would 
have been a poor end of my adventures to get shot down 
by my own party in mistake. 

The moon was climbing higher and higher; its 
light began to fall here and there in masses through 
the more open districts of the wood ; and right in front 
of me a glow of a different colour appeared among the 
trees. It was red and hot, and now and again it was a 
little darkened — as it were the embers of a bonfire 
smouldering. 

For the life of me, I could not think what it might 
be. 

At last I came right down upon the borders of the 
clearing. The western end was already steeped in 



224 TREASURE ISLAND. 

moonshine; the rest, and the block-house itself, still 
lay in a black shadow, chequered with long, silvery 
streaks of light. On the other side of the house an 
immense fire had burned itself into clear embers and 
shed a steady, red reverberation, contrasted strongly 
with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was 
not a soul stirring, nor a sound beside the noises of 
the breeze. 

I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, r^nd 
perhaps a little terror also. It had not been our way to 
build great fires; we were, indeed, by the captain's 
orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood ; and I began 
to fear that .something had gone wrong while I was 
absent. 

I stole round by the eastern end, keeping close in 
shadow, and at a convenient place, where the darkness 
was thickest, crossed the palisade. 

To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and 
knees, and crawled, without a sound, towards the corner 
of the house. As I drew nearer, my heart was suddenly and 
greatly lightened. It is not a pleasant noise in itself, and I 
have often complained of it at other times ; but just then 
it was like music to hear my friends snoring together 
so loud and peaceful in their sleep. The sea cry of the 
watch, that beautiful "All's well/' never fell more 
reassuringly on my ear. 

In the meantime, there was no doubt of one thing ; 
they kept an infamous bad watch. If it had been Silver 
and his lads that were now creeping in on them, not a 



225 



soul would have seen daybreak. That was what it was, 
thought I, to have the captain wounded ; and again I 
blamed myself sharply for leaving them in that danger 
with so few to mount guard. 

By this time I had got to the door and stood up. 
All was dark within, so that I could distinguish nothing 
by the eye. As for sounds, there was the steady drone 
of the snorers, and a small occasional noise, a nickering 
or pecking that I could in no way account for. 

With my arms before me I walked steadily in. I 
should lie down in my own place (I thought, with a 
silent chuckle) and enjoy their faces when they found me 
in the morning. 

My foot struck something yielding — it was a sleeper's 
leg ; and he turned and groaned, but without awaking. 

And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth 
out of the darkness : 

" Pieces of eight ! pieces of eight ! pieces of eight ! 
pieces of eight ! pieces of eight ! " and so forth, without 
pause or change, like the clacking of a tiny mill. 

Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint ! It was she 
whom I had heard pecking at a piece of bark; it was she, 
keeping better watch than any human being, who thus 
announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain. 

I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp, clipping 
tone of the parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up; 
and with a mighty oath, the voice of Silver cried : — 

' r Who goes?" 

I turned to run, struck violently against one person, 
P 



226 TREASURE ISLAND. 

recoiled, and ran full into the arms of a second, who, for 
his part, closed upon and held me tight. 

" Bring 1 a torch, Dick," said Silver, when my capture 
was thus assured. 

And one of the men left the log-house, and presently 
returned with a lighted brand. 



fart VI. 

CAPTAIN SILVER. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



The red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior 
of the block-house, showed ine the worst of my appre- 
hensions realised. The pirates were in possession of 
the house and stores : there was the cask of cognac, there 
were the pork and bread, as before ; and, what tenfold 
increased my horror, not a sign of any prisoner. I could 
only judge that all had perished, and my heart smote me 
sorely that I had not been there to perish with them. 

There were six of the buccaneers, all told ; not another 
man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet, 
flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first sleep 
of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen upon his 
elbow : he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained bandage 
round his head told that he had recently been wounded, 
and still more recently dressed. I remembered the man 
who had been shot and had run back among the woods 
in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he. 
p 2 



228 TEEASURE ISLAND. 

The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long* 
John's shoulder. He himself, 1 thought, looked some- 
what paler and more stern than I was used to. He 
still wore the fine broadcloth suit in which he had ful- 
filled his mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, 
daubed with clay and torn with the sharp briers of the 
wood. 

" So," said he, " here's Jim Hawkins, shiver my 
timbers ! dropped in, like, eh ? Well, come, I take that 
friendly.- , ' > 

And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask, 
and began to fill a pipe. 

u Give me a loan of the link, Dick/' said he ; and 
then, when he had a good light, " That'll do, lad," he 
added ; " stick the glim in the wood heap ; and you, 
gentlemen, bring yourselves to! — you needn't stand up 
for Mr. Hawkins ; he'll excuse you, you may lay to 
that. And so, Jim" — stopping the tobacco — "here 
you were, and quite a pleasant surprise for poor old 
John. I see you were smart when first I set my eyes 
on you ; but this here gets away from me clean, it do." 

To all this, as may be well supposed, I made no 
answer. They had set me with my back against the 
wall; and I stood there, looking Silver in the face, 
pluckily enough, I hope, to all outward appearance, but 
with black despair in my heart. 

Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great 
composure, and then ran on again. 

"Now, you see, Jim, so be as you are here," says 



IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP. 229 

he, " I'll give you a piece of my mind. I've always 
liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, and the pieter of 
my own self when I was young and handsome. I always 
wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a gentle- 
man, and now, my cock, you've got to. Cap'n Smollett's 
a fine seaman, as I'll own up to any day, but stiff on 
discipline. ' Dooty is dooty,' says he, and right he is. 
Just you keep clear of the cap'n. The doctor himself is 
gone dead again you — f ungrateful scamp ' was what he 
said ; and the short and the long of the whole story is 
about here : you can't go back to your own lot, for they 
won't have you; and, without you start a third ship's 
company all by yourself, which might be lonely, you'll 
have to jine with Cap'n Silver." 

So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive, 
and though I partly believed the truth of Silver's 
statement, that the cabin party were incensed at me for 
my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by 
what I heard. 

" I don't say nothing as to your being in our hands," 
continued Silver, " though there you are, and you may 
lay to it. I'm all for argyment; I never seen good 
come out o' threatening. If you like the service, well, 
you'll jine ; and if you don't, Jim, why, you're free to 
answer no — free and welcome, shipmate ; and if fairer 
can be said by mortal seaman, shiver my sides ! " 

"■ Am I to answer, then ? " I asked, with a very 
tremulous voice. Through all this sneering talk, I 
was made to feel the threat of death that overhung me, 



230 TREASURE ISLAND. 

and my cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in 
my breast. 

" Lad/' said Silver, ' ' no one's a-pressing of you. 
Take your bearings. None of us won't hurry you, 
mate ; time goes so pleasant in your company, you 
see." 

" Well," says I, growing a bit bolder, " if I'm to 
choose, I declare I have a right to know what's 
what, and why you're here, and where my friends 
are." 

1 ' Wot's wot ? " repeated one of the buccaneers, in a 
deep growl. "Ah, he'd be a lucky one as knowed 
that ! " 

" You'll, perhaps, batten down your hatches till 
you're spoke to, my friend," cried Silver truculently to 
this speaker. And then, in his first gracious tones, he 
replied to me : " Yesterday morning, Mr. Hawkins," 
said he, "in the dog-watch, down came Doctor Livesey 
with a flag of truce. Saj's he, 'Cap'n Silver, you're sold 
out. Ship's gone.' Well, maybe we'd been taking a 
glass, and a song to help it round. I won't say no. 
Leastways, none of us had looked out. We looked out, 
and, by thunder ! the old ship was gone. I never seen 
a pack o' fools look fishier ; and you may lay to that, if 
I tells you that looked the fishiest. ' Well/ says the 
doctor, c let's bargain.' We bargained, him and I, and 
here we are : stores, brandy, block-house, the firewood 
you was thoughtful enough to cut, and, in a manner of 
speaking, the whole blessed boat, from cross-trees to 



231 



kelson. As for them, they've tramped ; I don't know 
where's they are/' 

He drew again quietly at his pipe. 

" And lest you should .take it into that head of 
yours," he went on, " that you was included in the 
treaty, here's the last word that was said : ' How many 
are you/ says I, ' to leave ? ' ( Four/ says he — l four, 
and one of us wounded. As for that boy, I don't know 
where he is, confound him,' says he, ' nor I don't much 
care. We're about sick of him.' These was his words." 

"Is that all?" I asked. 

"Well, it's all that you're to hear, my son," re- 
turned Silver. 

" And now I am to choose ? " 

" And now you are to choose, and you may lay to 
that," said Silver. 

" Well," said I, " I am not such a fool but I know 
pretty well what I have to look for. Let the worst 
come to the worst, it's little I care. I've seen too many 
die since I fell in with you. But there's a thing* or 
two I have to tell you," I said, and by this time I was 
quite excited ; " and the first is this : here you are, in a 
bad way : ship lost, treasure lost, men lost ; your whole 
business gone to wreck ; and if you want to know who 
did it — it was I ! I was in the apple barrel the night 
we sighted land, and I heard you, John, and you, Dick 
Johnson, and Hands, who is now at the bottom of the 
sea, and told every word you said before the hour was 
out. And as for the schooner, it was I who cut her cable, 



232 TREASURE ISLAND. 

and it was I that killed the men you had aboard of her, 
and it was I who brought her where you'll never see her 
more, not one of you. The laugh's on my side ; I've 
had the top of this business from the first ; I no more 
fear you than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you please, or 
spare me. But one thing Pll say, and no more ; if 
you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when you 
fellows are in court for piracy, Pll save you all I can. 
It is for you to choose. Kill another and do yourselves 
no good, or spare me and keep a witness to save you 
from the gallows.''' 

I stopped, for, I tell you, I was out of breath, and, 
to my wonder, not a man of them moved, but all sat 
staring at me like as many sheep. And while they were 
still staring, I broke out again : — 

"And now, Mr. Silver/'' I said, "I believe you're 
the best man here, and if things go to the worst, Pll 
take it kind of you to let the doctor know the way I 
took it." 

' ' Pll bear it in mind/'' said Silver, with an accent 
so curious that I could not, for the life of me, decide 
whether he were laughing at my request, or had been 
favourably affected by my courage. 

" Pll put one to that/' cried the old mahogany- 
faced seaman — Morgan by name — whom I had seen in 
Long John's public-house upon the quays of Bristol. 
" It was him that knowed Black Dog." 

" Well, and see here," added the sea-cook. " Pll 
put another again to that, by thunder ! for it was this 



233 



same boy that faked the chart from Billy Bones. First 
and last, we've split upon Jim Hawkins ! " 

(t Then here goes ! " said Morgan, with an oath. 

And he sprang up, drawing his knife as if he 
had been twenty. 

11 Avast, there ! " cried Silver. " Who are you, Tom 
Morgan ? Maybe you thought you was cap'n here, 
perhaps. By the powers, but M teach you better ! 
Cross me, and you'll go where many a good man's 
gone before you, first and last, these thirty year back 
— some to the yard-arm, shiver my timbers ! and some 
by the board, and all to feed the fishes. There's never 
a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day 
a'terwards, Tom Morgan, you may lay to that." 

Morgan paused ; but a hoarse murmur rose from the 
others. 

" Tom's right," said one. 

" I stood hazing long enough from one," added 
another. " I'll be hanged if I'll be hazed by you, John 
Silver." 

"Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with 
me ? " roared Silver, bending far forward from his 
position on the keg, with his pipe still glowing in 
his right hand. " Put a name on what you're at; you 
aint dumb, I reckon. Him that wants shall get it. 
Have I lived this many years, and a son of a rum 
puncheon cock his hat athwart my hawse at the latter 
end of it? You know the way; you're all gentlemen 
o' fortune, by your account. Well, I'm ready. Take 



234 TREASURE ISLAND. 

a cutlass, him that dares, and Pll see the colour of his 
inside, crutch and all, before that pipe's empty/'' 

Not a man stirred ; not a man answered. 

" That's your sort, is it ? " he added, returning his 
pipe to his mouth. " Well, you're a gay lot to look 
at, anyway. Not much worth to fight, you aint. 
PVaps you can understand King George's English. 
Fm cap'n here by 'lection. I'm cap'n here because 
I'm the best man by a long sea-mile. You won't 
fight, as gentlemen o' fortune should; then, by thunder, 
you'll obey, and you may lay to it ! I like that boy, 
now ; I never seen a better boy than that. He's more 
a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house, 
and what I say is this : let me see him that'll lay a 
hand on him — that's what I say, and you may lay to 
it." 

There was a long pause after this. I stood straight 
up against the wall, my heart still going like a 
sledge-hammer, but with a ray of hope now shining 
in my bosom. Silver leant back against the wall, his 
arms crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as 
calm as though he had been in church; yet his eye 
kept wandering furtively, and he kept the tail of it 
on his unruly followers. They, on their part, drew 
gradually together towards the far end of the block- 
house, and the low hiss of their whispering sounded 
in my ear continuously, like a stream. One after 
another, they would look up, and the red light of the 
torch would fall for a second on their nervous faces; 



235 



but it was not towards me, it was towards Silver that 
they turned their eyes. 

" You seem to have a lot to say/' remarked Silver, 
spitting* far into the air. ' ' Pipe up and let me hear it, 
or lay to." 

u Ax your pardon, sir," returned one of the men, 
u you're pretty free with some of the rules ; maybe 
you'll kindly keep an eye upon the rest. This crew's 
dissatisfied ; this crew don't vally bullying a marlin- 
spikej this crew has its rights like other crews, I'll 
make so free as that ; and by your own rules, I take it 
we can talk together. I ax your pardon, sir, ack- 
nowledging you for to be capting at this present ; but 
I claim my right, and steps outside for a council." 

And with an elaborate sea-salute, this fellow, a long, 
ill-looking, yellow-eyed man of five and thirty, stepped 
coolly towards the door and disappeared out of the house. 
One after another, the rest followed his example ; each 
making 1 -a salute as he passed ; each adding some 
apology. "According to rules," said one. " Fo'c's'le 
council," said Morgan. And so with one remark or 
another, all marched out, and left Silver and me alone 
with the torch. 

The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe. 

"Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins," he said, in 
a steady whisper, that was no more than audible, 
" you're within half a plank of death, and, what's a 
long sight worse, of torture. They're going to throw 
me off. But, you mark, I stand by you through thick 



236 TREASURE ISLAND. 

and thin. I didn't mean to ; no, not till you spoke up. 
I was about desperate to lose that much blunt, and be 
hanged into the bargain. But I see you was the right 
sort. I says to myself : You stand by Hawkins, John, 
and Hawkins '11 stand by you. You're his last card, 
and, by the living thunder, John, he's yours ! Back 
to back, says I. You save your witness, and he'll save 
your neck ! " 

I began dimly to understand. 

a You mean all's lost ? " I asked. 

" Ay, by gum, I do ! " he answered. u Ship gone, 
neck gone — that's the size of it. Once I looked into 
that bay, Jim Hawkins, and seen no schooner — well, 
I'm tough, but I gave out. As for that lot and their 
council, mark me, they're outright fools and cowards. 
I'll save your life — if so be as I can — from them. But, 
see here, Jim — tit for tat — you save Long John from 
swinging." 

I was bewildered ; it seemed a thing so hopeless he 
was asking — he, the old buccaneer, the ringleader 
throughout. 

"What I can do, that I'll do," I said. 

" It's a bargain ! " cried Long John. " You speak 
up plucky, and, by thunder ! I've a chance." 

He hobbled to the torch, where it stood propped 
among the firewood, and took a fresh light to his pipe. 

" Understand me, Jim," he said, returning. u I've 
a head on my shoulders, I have. I'm on squire's side 
now. I know you've got that ship safe somewheres. 



237 



How you done it, I don't know, but safe it is. I guess 
Hands and O'Brien turned soft. I never much believed 
in neither of them. Now you mark me. I ask no 
questions, nor I won't let others. I know when a 
game's up, I do; and I know a lad that's staunch. 
Ah, you that's young — you and me might have done a 
power of good together ! " 

He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin 
canikin. 

"Will you taste, messmate?" he asked; and when 
I had refused : " Well, I'll take a drain myself, Jim," 
said he. " I need a caulker, for there's trouble on hand. 
And, talking o' trouble, why did that doctor give me 
the chart, Jim ? " 

My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he 
saw the needlessness of further questions. 

" Ah, well, he did, though," said he. ' ' And there's 
something under that, no doubt — something, surely, 
under that, Jim — bad or good." 

And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking 
his great fair head like a man who looks forward to the 
worst. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN. 

The council of the buccaneers had lasted some time, 
when one o£ them re-entered the house, and with a 
repetition of the same salute, which had in my eyes an 
ironical air, begged for a moment's loan of the torch. 
Silver briefly agreed ; and this emissary retired again, 
leaving us together in the dark. 

"There's a breeze coming, Jim/' said Silver, who 
had, by this time, adopted quite a friendly and familiar 
tone. 

I turned to the loophole nearest me and looked out. 
The embers of the great fire had so far burned them- 
selves out, and now glowed so low and duskily, that I 
understood why these conspirators desired a torch. 
About half way down the slope to the stockade, they 
were collected in a group ; one held the light ; another 
was on his knees in their midst, and I saw the blade of 
an open knife shine in his hand with varying colours, 
in the moon and torchlight. The rest were all some- 
what stooping, as though watching the manoeuvres of 
this last. I could just make out that he had a book 
as well as a knife in his hand ; and was still wondering 



THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN. 239 

how anything so incongruous had come in their pos- 
session, when the kneeling" figure rose once more to his 
feet, and the whole party began to move together 
towards the house. 

" Here they come/' said I ; and I returned to my 
former position, for it seemed beneath my dignity that 
they should find me watching them. 

"Well, let ; em come, lad — let 'em come/'* said 
Silver, cheerily. " I've still a shot in my locker/'' 

The door opened, and the five men, standing huddled 
together just inside, pushed one of their number for- 
ward. In any other circumstances it would have been 
comical to see his slow advance, hesitating as he set 
down each foot, but holding his closed right hand in 
front of him. 

" Step up, lad/' cried Silver. " I won't eat you. 
Hand it over, lubber. I know the rules, I do ; I won't 
hurt a depytation." 

Thus encouraged, the buccaneer stepped forth more 
briskly, and having passed something to Silver, from 
hand to hand, slipped yet more smartly back again to 
his companions. 

The sea-cook looked at what had been given him. 

" The black spot ! I thought so/' he observed. 
"Where might you have got the paper? Why, hillo ! 
look here, now : this aint lucky ! You've gone and cut 
this out of a Bible. What fool's cut a Bible ? " 

"Ah, there!" said Morgan— " there ! Wot did I 
say? No good '11 come o' that, I said." 



240 TREASURE ISLAND. 

"Well, you've about fixed it now, among you," 
continued Silver. " You'll all swing now, I reckon. 
What soft-headed lubber had a Bible ? " 

" It was Dick/' said one. 

" Dick, was it ? Then Dick can get to prayers," 
said Silver. u He's seen his slice of luck, has Dick, 
and you may lay to that." 

But here the long man with the yellow eyes struck 
in. 

"Belay that talk, John Silver," he said. "This 
crew has tipped you the black spot in full council, as in 
dooty bound ; just you turn it over, as in dooty bound, 
and see what's wrote there. Then you can talk." 

"Thanky, George," replied the sea-cook. "You 
always was brisk for business, and has the rules by 
heart, George, as I'm pleased to see. Well, what is 
it, anyway ? Ah ! ' Deposed ' — that's it, is it ? Very 
pretty wrote, to be sure; like print, I swear. Your 
hand o' write, George ? Why, you was gettin' quite 
a leadin' man in this here crew. You'll be cap'n next, 
I shouldn't wonder. Just oblige me with that torch 
again, will you ? this pipe don't draw." 

" Come, now," said George, " you don't fool this 
crew no more. You're a funny man, by your account ; 
but you're over now, and you'll maybe step down off 
that barrel, and help vote." 

u I thought you said you knowed the rules/' re- 
turned Silver, contemptuously. " Leastways, if you 
don't, I do ; and I wait here — and I'm still your cap'n, 



THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN. 241 

mind — till you outs with your grievances, and I reply, 
in the meantime, your black spot aint worth a biscuit. 
After that, we'll see/'' 

ft Oh/'' replied George, "you don'fc be under no kind 
of apprehension ; we're all square, we are. First, 
you've made a hash of this cruise — you'll be a bold man 
to say no to that. Second, you let the enemy out o' 
this here trap for nothing. Why did they want out ? 
I dunno ; but it's pretty plain they wanted it. Third, 
you wouldn't let us go at them upon the march. Oh, 
we see through you, John Silver; you want to play 
booty, that's what's wrong with you. And then, 
fourth, there's this here boy.'"' 

" Is that all ? " asked Silver, quietly. 

" Enough, too," retorted George. u We'll all swing 
and sun-dry for your b angling." 

"Well, now, look here, I'll answer these four 
p'ints; one after another I'll answer 'em. I made a 
hash o' this cruise, did I ? Well, now, you all know 
what I wanted ; and you all know, if that had been 
done, that we'd 'a' been aboard the Hispaniola this night 
as ever was, every man of us alive, and fit, and full of 
good plum-duff, and the treasure in the hold of her, by 
thunder ! Well, who crossed me ? Who forced my 
hand, as was the lawful cap'n? Who tipped me the 
black spot the day we landed, and began this dance ? 
Ah, it's a fine dance — I'm with you there — and looks 
mighty like a hornpipe in a rope's end at Execution 
Dock by London town, it does. But who done it? 



242 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Why, it was Anderson, and Hands, and you, George 
Merry ! And you're the last above board of that same 
meddling crew; and you have the Davy Jones's insolence 
to up and stand for cap'n over me — you, that sank the 
lot of us ! By the powers ! but this tops the stiffest 
yarn to nothing.'''' 

Silver paused, and I could see by the faces of George 
and his late comrades that these words had not been said 
in vain. 

11 That's for number one/'' cried the accused, wiping 
the sweat from his brow, for he had been talking with a 
vehemence that shook the house. " Why, I give you 
my word, I'm sick to speak to you. You've neither 
sense nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where your 
mothers was that let you come to sea. Sea ! Gentlemen 
o' fortune ! I reckon tailors is your trade." 

" Go on, John," said Morgan. " Speak up to the 
others." 

u Ah, the others ! " returned John. u They're a nice 
lot, aint they ? You say this cruise is bungled. Ah ! 
by gum, if you could understand how bad it's bungled, 
you would see ! We're that near the gibbet that my 
neck's stiff with thinking on it. You've seen 'em, maybe, 
hanged in chains, birds about 'em, seamen p'inting 'em 
out as they go down with the tide. r Who's that ? ' 
says one. 'That! Why, that's John Silver. I k no wed 
him well,' says another. And you can hear the chains 
a-jangle as you go about and reach for the other buoy. 
Now, that's about where we are, every mother's son of 



THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN. 243 

ns/ thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and other 
ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about 
number four, and that boy, why, shiver my timbers ! isn't 
he a hostage ? Are we a-going 1 to waste a hostage ? 
No, not us; he might be our last chance, and I shouldn't 
wonder. Kill that boy? not me, mates! And number 
three ? Ah, well, there's a deal to say to number three 
Maybe you don't count it nothing to have a real college 
doctor come to see you every day — you, John, with your 
head broke — or you, George Merry, that had the ague 
shakes upon you not six hours agone, and has your eyes 
the colour of lemon peel to this same moment on the 
clock ? And may be, perhaps, you didn't know there 
was a consort coming, either ? But there is ; and not 
so long till then ; and we'll see who'll be glad to have a 
hostage when it comes to that. And as for number two, 
and why I made a bargain — well, you came crawling on 
your knees to me to make it — on your knees you came, 
you was that downhearted — and you'd have starved, too, 
if I hadn't — but that's a trifle ! you look there — that's 
why ! " 

And he cast down upon the floor a paper that I 
instantly recognised — none other than the chart on 
yellow paper, with the three red crosses, that I had 
found in the oilcloth at the bottom of the captain's 
chest. Why the doctor had given it to him was more 
than I could fancy. 

But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance of 
the chart was incredible to the surviving mutineers. They 
q 2 



244 TREASURE ISLAND. 

leaped upon it like cats upon a mouse. It went from 
hand to hand, one tearing it from another ; and by the 
oaths and the cries and the childish laughter with which 
they accompanied their examination, you would have 
thought, not only they were fingering the very gold, but 
were at sea with it, besides, in safety. 

" Yes," said one, " that's Flint, sure enough. J. F., 
and a score below, with a clove hitch to it ; so he done 
ever." 

" Mighty pretty/' said George. " But how are we 
to get away with it, and us no ship ? " 

Silver suddenly sprang up, and supporting himself 
with a hand against the wall : " Now I give you 
warning, George/' he cried. " One more word of your 
sauce, and I'll call you down and fight you. How? 
Why, how do I know? You had ought to tell me 
that — you and the rest, that lost me my schooner, with 
your interference, burn you ! But not you, you can't ; 
you hain't got the invention of a cockroach. But civil 
you can speak, and shall, George Merry, you may lay to 
that." 

' ' That's fair enow," said the old man Morgan. 

" Fair ! I reckon so," said the sea-cook. " You 
lost the ship ; I found the treasure. Who's the better 
man at that ? And now I resign, by thunder ! Elect 
whom you please to be your cap'n now ; I'm done with 
it." 

" Silver ! " they cried. " Barbecue for ever ! Bar- 
becue for cap'n ! " 



THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN. 245 

" So that's the toon, is it ? " cried the cook. 
{e George, I reckon you'll have to wait another turn, 
friend ; and rucky for you as Pm not a revengeful man. 
But that was never my way. And now, shipmates, this 
black spot ? 'Tain't much good now, is it ? Dick's 
crossed his luck and spoiled his Bible, and that's about 
all/' 

" It'll do to kiss the book on still, won't it? " growled 
Dick, who was evidently uneasy at the curse he had 
brought upon himself. 

" A Bible with a bit cut out ! " returned Silver, 
derisively. " Not it. It don't bind no more'n a ballad- 
book." 

" Don't it, though ? " cried Dick, with a sort of joy. 
" Well, I reckon that's worth having, too." 

" Here, Jim — here's a cur'osity for you," said Silver; 
and he tossed me the paper. 

It was a round about the size of a crown piece. One 
side was blank, for it had been the last leaf ; the other 
contained a verse or two oi Revelation — these words 
among the rest, which struck sharply home upon my 
mind: "Without are dogs and murderers." The printed 
side had been blackened with wood ash, which already 
began to come off and soil my fingers; on the blank 
side had been written with the same material the one 
word " Depposed." I have that curiosity beside me at 
this moment ; but not a trace of writing now remains 
beyond a single scratch, such as a man might make 
with his thumb-nail. 



246 TREASURE ISLAND. 

That was the end of the night's "business. Soon 
after, with a drink all round, we lay down to sleep, and 
the outside of Silver's vengeance was to put George 
Merry up for sentinel, and threaten him with death if 
he should prove unfaithful. 

It was long ere I could close an eye, and Heaven 
knows I had matter enough for thought in the man 
whom I had slain that afternoon, in my own most 
perilous position, and, above all, in the remarkable game 
that I saw Silver now engaged upon — keeping the 
mutineers together with one hand, and grasping, with 
the other, after every means, possible and impossible, to 
make his peace and save his miserable life. He himself 
slept peacefully, and snored aloud; yet my heart was 
sore for him, wicked as he was, to think on the dark 
perils that environed, and the shameful gibbet that 
awaited him. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

ON PAEOLE. 

I was wakened — indeed, we were all wakened, for I 
could see even the sentinel shake himself together from 
where he had fallen against the door-post — by a clear, 
hearty voice hailing us from the margin of the wood : — 

ft Block-house, ahoy ! " it cried. " Here's the 
doctor.'" 

And the doctor it was. Although I was glad to 
hear the sound, yet my gladness was not without ad- 
mixture. I remembered with confusion my insub- 
ordinate and stealthy conduct ; and when I saw where 
it had brought me — among what companions and sur- 
rounded by what dangers — I felt ashamed to look him 
in the face. 

He must have risen in the dark, for the day had 
hardly come ; and when I ran to a loophole and looked 
out, I saw him standing, like Silver once before, up to 
the mid-leg in creeping vapour. 

" You, doctor ! Top o' the morning to you, sir ! " 
cried Silver, broad awake and beaming with good 
nature in a moment. " Bright and early, to be sure ; 
and it's the early bird, as the saying goes, that gets the 



248 TREASURE ISLAND. 

rations. George, shake up your timbers, son, and help 
Dr. Livesey over the ship's side. All a-doin' well, your 
patients was — all well and merry." 

So he pattered on, standing on the hill-top, with his 
crutch under his elbow, and one hand upon the side of 
the log-house — quite the old John in voice, manner, and 
expression. 

" We've quite a surprise for you, too, sir/' he con- 
tinued. " We've a little stranger here — he ! he ! A 
noo boarder and lodger, sir, and looking fit and taut as 
a fiddle ; slep' like a supercargo, he did, right alongside 
of John — stem to stem we was, all night/' 

Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade 
and pretty near the cook ; and I could hear the altera- 
tion in his voice as he said : — 

" Not Jim ? " 

" The very same Jim as ever was/' says Silver. 

The doctor stopped outright, although he did not 
speak, and it was some seconds before he seemed able to 
move on. 

"Well, well," he said, at last, "duty first and 
pleasure afterwards, as you might have said yourself, 
Silver. Let us overhaul these patients of yours." 

A moment afterwards he had entered the block-house, 
and, with one grim nod to me, proceeded with his work 
among the sick. He seemed under no apprehension, 
though he must have known that his life, among these 
treacherous demons, depended on a hair ; and he rattled 
on to his patients as if he were paying an ordinary pro- 



ON PAEOLE. 249 

fessional visit in a quiet English family. His manner, 
I suppose, reacted on the men; for they behaved to 
him as if nothing had occurred — as if he were still 
ship's doctor, and they still faithful hands before the 
mast. < 

"You're doing well, my friend/' he said to the 
fellow with the bandaged head, " and if ever any person 
had a close shave, it was you ; your head must be as 
hard as iron. Well, George, how goes it? You're a 
pretty colour, certainly ; why, your liver, man, is upside 
down. Did you take that medicine ? Did he take that 
medicine, men ? " 

" Ay, ay, sir, he took it, sure enough," returned 
Morgan. 

" Because, you see, since I am mutineers' doctor, or 
prison doctor, as I prefer to call it," says Doctor Livesey, 
in his pleasantest way, " I make it a point of honour not 
to lose a man for King George (God bless him !) and 
the gallows." 

The rogues looked at each other, but swallowed the 
home-thrust in silence. 

" Dick don't feel well, sir," said one. 

" Don't he?" replied the doctor. "Well, step up 
here, Dick, and let me see your tongue. No, I should 
be surprised if he did ! the man's tongue is fit to 
frighten the French. Another fever." 

" Ah, there," said Morgan, " that corned of sp'iling 
Bibles." 

" That corned — as you call it — of being arrant asses," 



250 TEE A SURE ISLAND. 

retorted the doctor, " and riot having sense enough to 
know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a 
vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable — 
though, of course, it's only an opinion — that you'll all 
have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of 
your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, 
Fm surprised at you. You're less of a fool than many, 
take you all round ; but you don't appear to me to have 
the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health. 

" Well/' he added, after he had dosed them round, 
and they had taken his prescriptions, with really laugh- 
able humility, more like charity school-children than 
blood-guilty mutineers and pirates — " well, that's clone 
for to-day. And now I should wish to have a talk with 
that boy, please." 

And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly. 

George Merry was at the door, spitting and splutter- 
ing over some bad-tasted medicine; but at the first 
word of the doctor's proposal he swung round with a 
deep flush, and cried " No ! " and swore. 

Silver struck the barrel with his open hand. 

<e Si-lence ! " he roared, and looked about him posi- 
tively like a lion. " Doctor," he went on, in his usual 
tones, " I was a-thinking of that, knowing as how you 
had a fancy for the boy. We're all humbly grateful 
for your kindness, and, as you see, puts faith in you, 
and takes the drugs down like that much grog. And I 
take it I've found a way as '11 suit all. Hawkins, will 
you give me your word of honour as a young gentleman 



ON PAROLE. 251 

— for a young gentlemen you are, although poor born — 
your word of honour not to slip your cable ? " 

I readily gave the pledge required. 

1 ' Then, doctor," said Silver, " you just step outside 
o' that stockade, and once you're there, I'll bring the 
boy down on the inside, and I reckon you can yarn 
through the spars. Good day to you/ sir, and all our 
dooties to the squire and Cap'n Smollett." 

•The explosion of disapproval, which nothing but 
Silver's black looks had restrained, broke out imme- 
diately the doctor had left the house. Silver was 
roundly accused of playing double — of trying to make 
a separate peace for himself — of sacrificing the interests 
of his accomplices and victims ; and, in one word, of the 
identical, exact thing that he was doing. It seemed to 
me so obvious, in this case, that I could not imagine 
how he was to turn their anger. But he was twice the 
man the rest were; and his last night's victory had 
given him a huge preponderance on their minds. He 
called them all the fools and dolts you can imagine, said 
it was necessary I should talk to the doctor, fluttered 
the chart in their faces, asked them if they could afford 
to break the treaty the very day they were bound a- 
treasure-hunting. 

u No, by thunder ! " he cried, " it's us must break 
the treaty when the time comes ; and till then Til 
gammon that doctor, if I have to ile his boots with 
brandy." 

And then he bade them get the fire lit, and stalked 



25*2 TREASURE ISLAND. 

out upon his crutch, with his hand on my shoulder, 
leaving them in a disarray, and silenced by his volubility 
rather than convinced. 

" Slow, lad, slow," he said. " They might round 
upon us in a twinkle of an eye, if we was seen to 
hurry." 

Very deliberately, then, did we advance across the 
sand to where the doctor awaited us on the other side 
of the stockade, and as soon as we were within easy 
speaking distance, Silver stopped. 

" You'll make a note of this here also, doctor," says 
he, " and the boy'll tell you how I saved his life, and 
were deposed for it, too, and you may lay to that. 
Doctor, when a man's steering as near the wind as 
me — playing chuck-farthing with the last breath in 
his body, like — you wouldn't think it too much, may- 
hap, to give him one good word ? You'll please bear 
in mind it's not my life only now — it's that boy's into 
the bargain; and you'll speak me fair, doctor, and 
give me a bit o' hope to go on, for the sake of 
mercy." 

Silver was a changed man, once he was out there 
and had his back to his friends and the block-house ; 
his cheeks seemed to have fallen in, his voice trembled ; 
never was a soul more dead in earnest. 

u \Yhy, John, you're not afraid ? " asked Doctor 
Livesey. 

" Doctor, I'm no coward ; no, not I — -not so much ! " 
and he snapped his fingers. "If I was I wouldn't 



ON PAROLE. 253 

say it. But Fll own up fairly, Fve the shakes upon 
me for the gallows. You're a good man and a 
true ; I never seen a better man ! And you'll not 
forget what I done good, not any more than you'll 
forget the bad, I know. And I step aside — see 
here — and leave you and Jim alone. And you'll 
put that down for me, too, for it's a long stretch, is 
that ! " 

So saying, he stepped back a little way, till he was 
out of earshot, and there sat down upon a tree-stump 
and began to whistle ; spinning round now and again 
upon his seat so as to command a sight, sometimes of 
me and the doctor, and sometimes of his unruly 
ruffians as they went to and fro in the sand, between 
the fire — which they were busy rekindling — and the 
house, from which they brought forth pork and bread 
to make the breakfast. 

" So, Jim," said the doctor, sadly, (t here you are. 
As you have brewed, so shall you drink, my boy. 
Heaven knows, I cannot find it in my heart to blame 
you ; but this much I will say, be it kind or unkind : 
when Captain Smollett was well, you dared not have 
gone off ; and when he was ill, and couldn't help it, by 
George, it was downright cowardly ! " 

I will own that I here began to weep. " Doctor," 
I said, " you might spare me. I have blamed myself 
enough; my life's forfeit anyway, and I should have 
been dead by now, if Silver hadn't stood for me ; and 
doctor, believe this, I can die — and I daresay I deserve 



254 TEEASURE ISLAND. 

it — but what I fear is torture. If they come to 
torture me " 

11 Jim/' the doctor interrupted, and his voice was 
quite changed, " Jim I can't have this. Whip over, 
and we'll run for it." 

" Doctor/' said I, " I passed my word." 

" I know, I know/' he cried. a We can't help 
that, Jim, now. I'll take it on my shoulders, hoi us 
bolus, blame and shame, my boy; but stay here, I 
cannot let you. Jump ! One jump, and you're out, 
and we'll run for it like antelopes." 

" No," I replied, " you know right well you 
wouldn't do the thing yourself; neither you, nor 
squire, nor captain; and no more will I. Silver 
trusted me ; I passed my word, and back I go. But, 
doctor, you did not let me finish. If they come to 
torture me, I might let slip a word of where the ship 
is ; for I got the ship, part by luck and part by risk- 
ing, and she lies in North Inlet, on the southern beach, 
and just below high water. At half tide she must be 
high and dry. " 

" The ship ! " exclaimed the doctor. 

Rapidly I described to him my adventures, and he 
heard me out in silence. 

" There is a kind of fate in this," he observed, when 
I had done. " Every step, it's you that saves our 
lives ; and do you suppose by any chance that we are 
going to let you lose yours? That would be a poor 
return, my boy. You found out the plot; you found 



ON PAROLE. 255 

Ben Gunn — the best deed that ever you did, or will do, 
though you live to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter, and talking 
o£ Ben Gunn ! why, this is the mischief in person. 
Silver ! " he cried, " Silver ! — I'll give you a piece of 
advice/' he continued, as the cook drew near again; 
" don't you be in any great hurry after that treasure/' 

" Why, sir, I do my possible, which that aint," said 
Silver. " I can only, asking your pardon, save my life 
and the boy's by seeking for that treasure; and you 
may lay to that." 

"Well, Silver," replied the doctor, "if that is so, 
I'll go one step further : look out for squalls when you 
find it." 

"Sir," said Silver, "as between man and man, 
that's too much and too little. What you're after, why 
you left the block-house, why you given me that there 
chart, I don't know, now, do I? and yet I done your 
bidding with my eyes shut and never a word of hope ! 
But no, this here's too much. If you won't tell me 
what you mean plain- out, just say so, and I'll leave 
the helm." 

" No," said the doctor, musingly, " I've no right to 
say more ; it's not my secret, you see, Silver, or, I give 
you my word, I'd tell it you. But I'll go as far with 
you as I dare go, and a step beyond ; for I'll have my 
wig sorted by the captain or I'm mistaken ! And, first, 
I'll give you a bit of hope : Silver, if we both get alive 
out of this wolf-trap, I'll do my best to save you, short 
of perjury." 



256 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Silver's face was radiant. " You couldn't say more, 
I'm sure, sir, not if you was. my mother," he cried. 

" Well, that's my first concession," added the doctor. 
" My second is a piece of advice : Keep the boy close 
beside you, and when you need help, halloo. I'm off to 
seek it for you, and that itself will show you if I speak 
at random. Good-bye, Jim." 

And Dr. Livesey shook hands with me through the 
stockade, nodded to Silver, and set off at a brisk pace 
into the wood. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE TREASURE HUNT FLINT'S POINTER. 

" Jim/'' said Silver, when we were alone, " if I saved 
your life, yon saved mine; and Fll not forget it. I 
seen the doctor waving" you to run for it — with the tail 
of my eye, I did ; and I seen you say no, as plain as 
hearing. Jim, that's one to you. This is the first 
glint of hope I had since the attack failed, and I owe 
it you. And now, Jim, we're to go in for this here 
treasure hunting, with sealed orders, too, and I don't 
like it ; and you and me must stick close, back to back 
like, and we'll save our necks in spite o' fate and 
fortune." 

Just then a man hailed us from the fire that break- 
fast was ready, and we were soon seated here and there 
about the sand over biscuit and fried junk. They had 
lit a fire fit to roast an ox ; and it was now grown so 
hot that they could only approach it from the windward, 
and even there not without precaution. In the same 
wasteful spirit, they had cooked, I suppose, three times 
more than we could eat; and one of them, with an 
empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which 
blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel. I never 

R 



258 TREASUEE ISLAND. 

in my life saw men so careless of the morrow ; hand to 
mouth is the only word that can describe their way 
of doing; and what with wasted food and sleeping 
sentries, though they were bold enough for a brush and 
be done with it, I could see their entire unfitness for 
anything like a prolonged campaign. 

Even Silver,, eating away, with Captain Flint upon 
his shoulder, had not a word of blame for their reckless- 
ness. And this the more surprised me, for I thought 
he had never shown himself so cunning as he did 
then. 

" Ay, mates/'' said he, " it's lucky you have Barbecue 
to think for you with this here head. I got what 
I wanted, I did. Sure enough, they have the ship. 
Where they have it, I don't know yet ; but once we 
hit the treasure, we'll have to jump about and find out. 
And then, mates, us that has the boats, I reckon, lias 
the upper hand." 

Thus he kept running on, with his mouth full of 
the hot bacon : thus he restored their hope and con- 
fidence, and, I more than suspect, repaired his own at 
the same time. 

"As for hostage," he continued, "that's his last 
talk, I guess, with them he loves so dear. I've got my 
piece o' news, and thanky to him for that ; but it's over 
and done. I'll take him in a line when we go treasure- 
hunting, for we'll keep him like so much gold, in case 
of accidents, you mark, and in the meantime. Once we 
got the ship and treasure both, and off to sea like jolly 



THE TREASURE HUNT— T ELINT\s POINTER. 259 

companions, why, then, we'll talk Mr. Hawkins over, 
we will, and we'll give him his share, to be sure, for all 
his kindness. " 

It was no wonder the men were in a good humour 
now. For my part, I was horribly cast down. Should 
the scheme he had now sketched prove feasible, Silver, 
already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt it. 
He had still a foot in either camp, and there was no 
doubt he would prefer wealth and freedom with the 
pirates to a bare escape from hanging, which was the 
best he had to hope on our side. 

Nay, and even if things so fell out that he was 
forced to keep his faith with Dr. Livesey, even then 
what danger lay before us ! What a moment that 
would be when the suspicions of his followers turned 
to certainty, and he and I should have to fight for deai 
life — he, a cripple, and I, a boy — against five strong 
and active seamen ! 

Add to this double apprehension, the mystery that 
still hung over the behaviour of my friends ; their un- 
explained desertion of the stockade ; their inexplicable 
cession of the chart ; or, harder still to understand, the 
doctor's last warning to Silver, " Look out for squalls 
when you find it;" and you will readily believe how 
little taste I found in my breakfast, and with how 
uneasy a heart I set forth behind my captors on the 
quest for treasure. 

We made a curious figure, had any one been there 
to see us ; all in soiled sailor clothes, and all but me 
R 2 



260 TREASURE ISLAND. 

armed to the teeth. Silver had two sruns slims* about 
him — one before and one behind — besides the great 
cutlass at his waist, and a pistol in each pocket of his 
square-tailed coat. To complete his strange appear- 
ance, Captain Flint sat perched upon his shoulder 
and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless sea-talk. 
I had a line about my waist, and followed obediently 
after the sea-cook, who held the loose end of the rope, 
now in his free hand, now between his powerful teeth. 
For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear. 

The other men were variously burthened; some 
carrying picks and shovels — for that had been the very 
first necessary they brought ashore from the Hispaniola 
— others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the 
midday meal. Ail the stores, I observed, came from 
our stock ; and I could see the truth of Silver's words 
the night before. Had he not struck a bargain with 
the doctor, he and his mutineers, deserted by the ship, 
must have been driven to subsist on clear water and the 
proceeds of their hunting. Water would have been 
little to their taste ; a sailor is not usually a good sLot ; 
and, besides all that, when they were so short of 
eatables, it was not likely they would be very flush 
of powder. 

Well, thus equipped, we all set out — even the fellow 
with the broken head, who should certainly have kept 
in shadow — and straggled, one after another, to the 
beach, where the two gigs awaited us. Even .these bore 
trace of the drunken folly of the pirates, one in a 




The Treasure Hunters. 

"All but me armed to the teeth. I had a line about my waist . . . thus 

equipped, we all set out." — Page 260. 



THE TREASURE HUNT — FLINT'S POINTER. 261 

broken thwart, and both in their muddy and unbailed 
condition. Both were to be carried along with us, for 
the sake of safety ; and so, with our numbers divided 
between them, we set forth upon the bosom of the 
anchorage. 

As we pulled over, there was some discussion on the 
chart. The red cross was, of course, far too large to be 
a guide ; and the terms of the note on the back, as you 
will hear, admitted of some ambiguity. They ran, the 
reader may remember, thus : — 

"Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to the N". 
of ST.N.E. 

" Skeleton Island E.S.E. and / E. 
- Ten feet." 

A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, 
right before us, the anchorage was bounded by a plateau 
from two to three hundred feet high, adjoining on the 
north the sloping southern shoulder of the Spy-glass, 
and rising again towards the south into the rough, cliffy 
eminence called the Mizzen-mast Hill. The top of the 
plateau was dotted thickly with pine trees of varying 
height. Every here and there, one of a different species 
rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbours, and 
which of these was the particular "tall tree "of Captain 
Flint could only be decided on the spot, and by the 
readings of the compass. 

Yet, although that was the case, every man on 
board the boats had picked a favourite of his own ere 



262 TREASURE ISLAND. 

we were half way over, Long John alone shrugging 
his shoulders and bidding them wait till they were 
there. 

We pulled easily, by Silver's directions, not to weary 
the hands prematurely ; and, after quite a long passage, 
landed at the mouth of the second river — that whicli 
runs down a woody cleft of the Spy-glass. Thence, 
bending to our left, we began to ascend the slope 
towards the plateau. 

At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted, 
marish vegetation, greatly delayed our progress ; but by 
little and little the hill began to steepen and become 
stony under foot, and the wood to change its character 
and to grow in a more open order. It was, indeed, a 
most pleasant portion of the island that we were now 
approaching. A heavy-scented broom and many 
flowering shrubs had almost taken the place of 
grass. Thickets of green nutmeg* trees were dotted 
here and there with the red columns and the broad 
shadow of the pines; and the first mingled their 
spice with the aroma of the others. The air, be- 
sides, was fresh and stirring, and this, under the 
sheer sunbeams, was a wonderful refreshment to our 
senses. 

The party spread itself abroad, in a fan shape, shout- 
ing and leaping to and fro. About the centre, and a 
good way behind the rest,. Silver and I followed — I 
tethered by my rope, he ploughing, with deep pants, 
among the sliding gravel. From time to time, 



THE TREASURE HUNT — FLINGS POINTER. 263 

indeed, I had to lend him a hand, or he must have 
missed his footing and fallen backward down the 
hill. 

We had thus proceeded for about half a mile, 
and were approaching the brow of the plateau, 
when the man upon the farthest left began to cry 
aloud, as if in terror. Shout after shout came 
from him, and the others began to run in his di- 
rection. 

" He can't V found the treasure," said old Morgan, 
hurrying past us from the right, " f or that's clean 
a-top." 

Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, 
it was something very different. At the foot of a pretty 
big pine, and involved in a green creeper, which had 
even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human 
skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the 
ground. I believe a chill struck for a moment to 
every heart. 

" He was a seaman/'' said George Merry, who, bolder 
than the rest, had gone up close, and was examining the 
rags of clothing. " Leastways, this is good sea- 
cloth." 

" Ay, ay," said Silver, " like enough ; you wouldn't 
look to find a bishop here, I reckon. But what 
sort of a way is that for bones to lie? 'Tain't in 
naturV 

Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to 
fancy that the body was in a natural position. But for 



264 TREASURE ISLAND. 

some disarray (the work, perhaps, of the birds that had 
fed upon him, or of the slow-growing creeper that had. 
gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly 
straight — his feet pointing in one direction, his hands, 
raised above his head like a diver's, pointing directly in 
the opposite. 

"I've taken a notion into my old numskull," ob- 
served Silver. " Here's the compass ; there's the tip- 
top p'int o' Skeleton Island, stickin' out like a tooth. 
Just take a bearing, will you, along the line of them 
bones." 

It was done. The body pointed straight in the 
direction of the island, and the compass read duly 
E.S.E.and by E. 

"I thought so," cried the cook; "this here is a 
p'inter. Right up there is our line for the Pole Star 
and the jolly dollars. But, by thunder ! if it don't 
make me cold inside to think of Flint. This is one of 
his jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was 
alone here ; he killed 'em, every man ; and this one he 
hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver my 
timbers ! They're long bones, and the hair's been 
yellow. Ay, that would be Allardyce. You mind 
Allardyce, Tom Morgan ?" 

"Ay, ay," returned Morgan, "I mind him; he 
owed me money, he did, and took my knife ashore with 
him." 

" Speaking of knives," said another, " why don't 
we find his'n lying round? Flint warn't the man to 



THE TREASURE HUNT — FLINGS POINTER. 265 

pick a seaman's pocket; and the birds, I guess, would 
leave it be." 

" By the powers, and that's true !" cried Silver. 

" There aint a thing left here/' said Merry, still 
feeling round among the bones, " not a copper doit nor 
a baccy box. It don't look nat'ral to me." 

" No, by gum, it don't/' agreed Silver; "not nat'ral, 
nor not nice, says you. Great guns ! messmates, but 
if Flint was living, this would be a hot spot for you and 
me. Six they were, and six are we ; and bones is what 
they are now." 

" I saw him dead with these here deadlights," said 
Morgan. " Billy took me in. There he laid, with 
penny-pieces on his eyes." 

1 ( Dead — ay, sure enough he's dead and gone below," 
said the fellow with the bandage ; " but if ever sperrit 
walked, it would be Flint's. Dear heart, but he died 
bad, did Flint !" 

" Ay, that he did," observed another ; " now he 
raged, and now he hollered for the rum, and now he 
sang. ' Fifteen Men' were his only song, mates; and I 
tell you true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It 
was main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that 
old song comin' out as clear as clear — and the death- 
haul on the man already." 

" Come, come," said Silver, " stow this talk. He's 
dead, and he don't walk, that I know; leastways, he 
won't walk by day, and you may lay to that. Care 
killed a cat. Fetch ahead for the doubloons." 



266 TREASURE ISLAND. 

We started, certainly ; but in spite of the hot sun 
and the staring daylight, the pirates no longer ran 
separate and shouting through the wood, but kept side 
by side and spoke with bated breath. The terror of the 
dead buccaneer had fallen on their spirits. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE TREASURE HUNT THE VOICE AMONG THE TREES. 

Partly from the damping influence of this alarm, partly 
to rest Silver and the sick folk, the whole party sat 
down as soon as they had gained the brow of the 
ascent. 

The plateau being somewhat tilted towards the west, 
this spot on which we had paused commanded a wide 
prospect on either hand. Before us, over the tree-tops, 
we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf; 
behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage 
and Skeleton Island, but saw — clear across the spit and 
the eastern lowlands — a great field of open sea upon the 
east. Sheer above us rose the Spy-glass, here dotted 
with single pines, there black with precipices. There 
was no sound but that of the distant breakers, mounting 
from all round, and the chirp of countless insects in 
the brush. Not a man, not a sail upon the sea ; 
the very largeness of the view increased the sense of 
solitude. 

Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his 
compass. 

" There are three 'tall trees ' " said he, " about in the 



268 TREASURE ISLAND. 

right line from Skeleton Island. ' Spy-glass Shoulder/ 
I take it, means that lower p'int there. It's child's play 
to find the stuff now. I've half a mind to dine 
first." 

" I don't feel sharp/' growled Morgan. " Thinkin' 
o' Flint — I think it were — as done me." 

" Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he's dead," 
said Silver. 

" He were an ugly devil," cried a third pirate, with 
a shudder ; " that blue in the face, too ! " 

" That was how the rum took him," added Merry. 
" Blue ! well, I reckon he was blue. That's a true 
word." 

Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon 
this train of thought, they had spoken lower and 
lower, and they had almost got to whispering by now, 
so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted the 
silence of the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle 
of the trees in front of us, a thin, high, trembling 
voice struck up the well-known air and words : — 

" Fifteen men on the dead man's chest— 
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum ! " 

I never have seen men more dreadfully affected 
than the pirates. The -colour went from their six 
faces like enchantment ; some leaped to their feet, 
some clawed hold of others; Morgan grovelled on the 
ground. 

" It's Flint, by ! " cried Merry. 



THE VOICE AMONG THE TEEES. 269 

The song had stopped as suddenly as it began — 
broken off, you would have said, in the middle of a 
note, as though some one had laid his hand upon the 
singer's mouth. Coming so far through the clear, 
sunny atmosphere among the green tree-tops, I 
thought it had sounded airily and sweetly; and the 
effect on my companions was the stranger. 

"Come/' said Silver, struggling with his ashen 
lips to get the word out, " this won't do. Stand by 
to go about. This is a rum start, and I can't name 
the voice : but it's some one skylarking — some one 
that's flesh and blood, and you may lay to that." 

His courage had come back as he spoke, and some 
of the colour to his face along with it. Already the 
others had begun to lend an ear to this encourage- 
ment, and were coming a little to themselves, when 
the same voice broke out again — not this time sing- 
ing, but in a faint distant hail, that echoed yet fainter 
among the clefts of the Spy-glass. 

"Darby M'Graw," it wailed— for that is the 
word that best describes the sound — " Darby M'Graw ! 
Darby M'Graw !" again and again and again ; and then 
rising a little higher, and with an oath that I leave 
out, « Fetch aft the rum, Darby ! " 

The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their 
eyes starting from their heads. Long after the voice 
had died away they still stared in silence, dreadfully, 
before them. 

" That fixes it ! " gasped one. " Let's go." 



270 TEEASUEE ISLAND. 

" They was his last words/'' moaned Morgan, "his 
last words above board. - " 

Dick had his Bible out, and was praying volubly. 
He had been well brought up, had Dick, before he came 
to sea and fell among bad companions. 

Still, Silver was unconquered. I could hear his 
teeth rattle in his head ; but he had not yet surren- 
dered. 

" Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby, " 
he muttered; " not one but us that's here.'" And then, 
making a great effort, " Shipmates/'' he cried, " I'm 
here to get that stuff, and I'll not be beat by man nor 
devil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and, 
by the powers, I'll face him dead. There's seven hun- 
dred thousand pound not a quarter of a mile from here. 
When did ever a gentleman o' fortune show his stern to 
that much dollars, for a boosy old seaman with a blue 
mug — and him dead, too ? " 

But there was no sign of re-awakening courage in 
his followers ; rather, indeed, of growing terror at the 
irreverence of his words. 

" Belay there, John ! " said Merry. " Don't you 
cross a sperrit." 

And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They 
would have run away severally had they dared ; but 
fear kept them together, and kept them close by John, 
as if his daring helped them. He, on his part, had 
pretty well fought his weakness down. 

"Sperrit? Well, maybe," he said. "But there's 



THE VOICE AMONG THE TREES. 271 

one tiling not clear to me. There was an echo. Now, 
no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow; well, then, 
what's he doing with an echo to him, I should like to 
know ? That aint in natur', surely ? " 

This argument seemed weak enough to me. But 
you can never tell what will affect the superstitious, 
and, to my wonder, George Merry was greatly re- 
lieved. 

' ' Well, that's so/' he said. ' ' You've a head upon 
your shoulders, John, and no mistake. 'Bout ship, 
mates ! This here crew is on a wrong tack, I do believe. 
And come to think on it, it was like Flint's voice, I 
grant you, but not just so clear-away like it, after all. 
It was liker somebody else's voice now — it was 
Hker" 

" By the powers, Ben Gunn ! " roared Silver. 

' ' Ay, and so it were," cried Morgan, springing on 
his knees. " Ben Gunn it were ! " 

11 It don't make much odds, do it, now ? " asked 
Dick. " Ben Gunn's not here in the body, any more'n 
Flint." 

But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn. 

"Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn," cried Merry; 
" dead or alive, nobody minds him." 

It was extraordinary how their spirits had returned, 
and how the natural colour had revived in their faces. 
Soon they were chatting together, with intervals of 
listening ; and not long after, hearing no further sound, 
they shouldered the tools and set forth again, Merry 



27% TREASURE ISLAND. 

walking first with Silver's compass to keep them on the 
right line with Skeleton Island. He had said the truth: 
dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn. 

Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around 
him as he went, with fearful glances ; but he found no 
sympathy, and Silver even joked him on his precautions. 

u I told you," said he — " I told you, you had spoiled 
your Bible. If it aint no good to swear by, what do 
you suppose a sperrit would give for it ? Not that ! " 
and he snapped his big fingers, halting a moment on his 
crutch. 

But Dick was not to be comforted ; indeed, it was 
soon plain to me that the lad was falling sick ; hastened 
by heat, exhaustion, and the shock of his alarm, the 
fever, predicted by Doctor Livesey, was evidently grow- 
ing swiftly higher. 

It was fine open walking here, upon the summit; 
our way lay a little down-hill, for, as I have said, the 
plateau tilted towards the west. The pines, great and 
small, grew wide apart ; and even between the clumps 
of nutmeg and azalea, wide open spaces baked in the hot 
sunshine. Striking, as we did, pretty near north-west 
across the island, we drew, on the one hand, ever nearer 
under the shoulders of the Spy-glass, and on the other, 
looked ever wider over that western bay where I had 
once tossed and trembled in the coracle. 

The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the 
bearing, proved the wrong one. So with the second. 
The third rose nearly two hundred feet into the air 



THE VOICE AMONG THE TREES. 273 

above a clump of underwood ; a giant of a vegetable, 
with a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide 
shadow around in which a company could have ma- 
noeuvred. It was conspicuous far to sea both on the east 
and west, and might have been entered as a sailing mark 
upon the chart. 

But it was not its size that now impressed my com- 
panions; it was the knowledge that seven hundred 
thousand pounds in gold lay somewhere buried below its 
spreading shadow. The thought of the money, as they 
drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. Their 
eyes burned in their heads ; their feet grew speedier and 
lighter ; their whole soul was bound up in that fortune, 
that whole lifetime of extravagance and pleasure, that 
lay waiting there for each of them. 

Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch ; his nostrils 
stood out and quivered ; he cursed like a madman when 
the flies settled on his hot and shiny countenance ; he 
plucked furiously at the line that held me to him, and, 
from time to time, turned his eyes upon me with a 
deadly look. Certainly he took no pains to hide his 
thoughts ; and certainly I read them like print. In the 
immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been for- 
gotten ; his promise and the doctor's warning were both 
things of the past ; and I could not doubt that he hoped 
to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispaniola 
under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that 
island, and sail away as he had at first intended, laden 
with crimes and riches, 
s 



274 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for 
me to keep up with the rapid pace of the treasure- 
hunters. Now and again I stumbled ; and it was then 
that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched 
at me his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped 
behind us, and now brought up the rear, was babbling to 
himself both prayers and curses, as his fever kept rising. 
This also added to my wretchedness, and, to crown all, I 
was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had 
once been acted on that plateau, when that ungodly 
buccaneer with the blue face — he who died at Savannah, 
singing and shouting for drink — had there, with his own 
hand, cut down his six accomplices. This grove, that 
was now so peaceful, must then have rung with cries, I 
thought; and even with the thought I could believe I 
heard it ringing still. 

We were now at the margin of the thicket. 

" Huzza, mates, all together ! " shouted Merry; and 
the foremost broke into a run. 

And suddenly, not ten yards further, we beheld 
them stop. A low cry arose. Silver doubled his pace, 
digging away with the foot of his crutch like one 
possessed ; and next moment he and I had come also to 
a dead halt. 

Before us was a great excavation, not very recent, 
for the sides had fallen in and grass had sprouted on the 
bottom. In this were the shaft of a pick broken in 
two and the boards of several packing-cases strewn 
around. On one of these boards I saw, branded with a 



THE VOICE AMONG THE TREES. 275 

hot iron, the name Walrus — the name of Flint's 
ship. 

All was clear to probation. The cache had been 
found and rifled : the seven hundred thousand pounds 
were gone ! 



s 2 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE FALL OF A CHIEFTAIN. 

There never was such an overturn in this world. Each 
of these six men was as though he had been struck. 
But with Silver the blow passed almost instantly. Every 
thought of his soul had been set full-stretch, like a 
racer, on that mouey ; well, he was . brought up in a 
single second, dead; and he kept his head, found his 
temper, and changed his plan before the others had had 
time to realise the disappointment. 

" Jim/' he whispered, " take that, and stand by for 
trouble." 

And he passed me a double-barrelled pistol. 

At the same time he began quietly moving north- 
ward, and in a few steps had put the hollow between us 
two and the other five. Then he looked at me and 
nodded, as much as to say, " Here is a narrow corner," 
as, indeed, I thought it was. His looks were now quite 
friendly; and I was so revolted at these constant changes, 
that I could not forbear whispering, " So you've changed 
sides again." 

There was* no time left for him to answer in. The 
buccaneers, with oaths and cries, began to leap, one after 



THE FALL OF A CHIEFTAIN. 277 

another,, into the pit, and to dig with their fingers, 
throwing the boards aside as they did so. Morgan 
found a piece of gold. He held it up with a perfect 
spout of oaths. It was a two-guinea piece, and it went 
from hand to hand among them for a quarter of a 
minute. 

" Two guineas ! " roared Merry, shaking it at Silver. 
"That's your seven hundred thousand pounds, is it? 
You're the man for bargains, aint you? You're him 
that never bungled nothing, you wooden-headed 
lubber!" 

" Dig away, boys," said Silver, with the coolest in- 
solence; "you'll find some pig-nuts and I shouldn't 
wonder." 

" Pig-nuts ! " repeated Merry, in a scream. " Mates, 
do you hear that? I tell you, now, that man there 
knew it all along. Look in the face of him, and you'll 
see it wrote there." 

" Ah, Merry," remarked Silver, " standing for cap'n 
again ? You're a pushing lad, to be sure." 

But this time every one was entirely in Merry's 
favour. They began to scramble out of the excavation, 
darting furious glances behind them. One thing I ob- 
served, which looked well for us : they all got out upon 
the opposite side from Silver. 

Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the 
other, the pit between us, and nobody screwed up high 
enough to offer the first blow. Silver n^ver moved; he 
watched them, very upright on his crutch, and looked as 



278 TREASURE ISLAND. 

cool as ever I saw hini. He was brave, and no mis- 
take. 

At last, Merry seemed to think a speech might help 
matters. 

u Mates/' says he, "there's two of them alone there; 
one's the old cripple that brought us all here and 
blundered us down to this ; the other's that cub that I 
mean to have the heart of. Now, mates " 

He was raising his arm and his voice, and plainly 
meant to lead a charge. But just then — crack ! crack ! 
crack ! — three musket-shots flashed out of the thicket. 
Merry tumbled headforemost into the excavation; the 
man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum, and 
fell all his length upon his side, where he lay dead, but 
still twitching ; and the other three turned and ran for 
it with all their might. 

Before vou could wink, Long; John had fired 
two barrels of a pistol into the struggling Merry ; 
and as the man rolled up his eyes at him in the 
last agony, " George," said he, " I reckon I settled 

you." 

At the same moment the doctor, Gray, and Ben 
Gunn joined us, with smoking muskets, from among 
the nutmeg trees. 

" Forward ! " cried the doctor. " Double quick, my 
lads. T\ r e must head 'em off the boats." 

And we set off at a great pace, sometimes plunging 
through the bushes to the chest. 

I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep up with 



THE PALL OF A CHIEFTAIN. 279 

us. The work that man went through, leaping on his 
crutch till the muscles of his chest were tit to hurst,, was 
work no sound man ever equalled ; and so thinks the 
doctor. As it was, he was already thirty yards behind 
us, and on the verge of strangling, when we reached the 
brow of the slope. 

" Doctor/'' he hailed, " see there ! no hurry ! " 

Sure enough there was no hurry. In a more open 
part of the plateau, we could see the three survivors 
still running in the same direction as they had started, 
right for Mizzen-mast Hill. We were already between 
them and the boats; and so we four sat down to 
breathe, while Long John, mopping his face, came 
slowly up with us. 

" Thank ye kindly, doctor/'' says he. " You came 
in in about the nick, I guess, for me and Hawkins. 
And so it's you, Ben Gunn ! " he added. " Well, 
you're a nice one to be sure/'' 

a Fm Ben Gunn, I am/' replied the. maroon, 
wriggling like an eel in his embarrassment. "And," 
he added, after a long pause, "how do, Mr. Silver? 
Pretty well, I thank ye, says you/'' 

" Ben, Ben/' murmured Silver, " to think as youVe 
done me ! " 

The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pickaxes, 
deserted, in their flight, by the mutineers ; and then as 
we proceeded leisurely down hill to where the boats were 
lying, related, in a few words, what had taken place. 
It was a story that profoundly interested Silver ; and 



280 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Ben Gunn, the half-idiot maroon, was the hero from 
beginning to end. 

Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about the island, 
had found the skeleton — it was he that had rifled it; 
he had found the treasure ; he had dug it up (it was 
the haft of his pickaxe that lay broken in the excava- 
tion) ; he had carried it on his back, in many weary 
journeys, from the foot of the tall pine to a cave 
he had on the two-pointed hill at the north-east 
angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in 
safety since two months before the arrival of the 
Hispaniola. 

When the doctor had wormed this secret from him, 
on the afternoon of the attack, and when, next morning 
he saw the anchorage deserted, he had gone to Silver, 
given him the chart, which was now useless — given him 
the stores, for Ben Gunn's cave was well supplied with 
goats' meat salted by himself — given anything and 
everything to get a chance of moving in safety 
from the stockade to the two-pointed hill, there to 
be clear of malaria and keep a guard upon the 
money. 

" As for you, Jim/' he said, " it went against my 
heart, but I did what I thought best for those who had 
stood by their duty ; and if you were not one of these, 
whose fault was it ? " 

That morning, finding that I was to be involved in 
the horrid disappointment he had prepared for the muti- 
neers, he had run all the way to the cave, and, leaving 



THE FALL OF A CHIEFTAIN. 281 

the squire to guard the captain, had taken Gray and 
the maroon, and started, making the diagonal across the 
island, to be at hand beside the pine. Soon, however, he 
saw that our party had the start of him ; and Ben Gunn, 
being fleet of foot, had been despatched in front to do 
his best alone. Then it had occurred to him to work 
upon the superstitions of his former shipmates; and he 
was so far successful that Gray and the doctor had 
come up and were already ambushed before the arrival 
of the treasure-hunters. 

"Ah," said Silver, "it were fortunate for me 
that I had Hawkins here. You would have let old 
John be cut to bits, and never given it a thought 
doctor." 5 ' 

"Not a thought/' replied Doctor Livesey, cheerily. 

And by this time we had reached the gigs. The 
doctor, with the pickaxe, demolished one of them and 
then we all got aboard the other, and set out to go 
round by sea for North Inlet. 

This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver 
though he was almost killed already with fatigue' 
was set to an oar, like the rest of us, and we were 
soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea. Soon we 
passed out of the straits and doubled the south-east 
corner of the island, round which, four days ago, we had 
towed the Hispaniola. 

As we passed the two-pointed hill, we could see the 
black mouth of Ben Gunn's cave, and a figure standing 
by it, leaning on a musket. It was the squire; and 



282 TREASURE ISLAND. 

we waved a handkerchief and gave him three cheers, 
in which the voice of Silver joined as heartily as any. 

Three miles, farther, just inside the mouth of North 
Inlet, what should we meet but the Hispaniola, cruising 
by herself ? The last flood had lifted her ; and had 
there been much wind, or a strong tide current, as in 
the southern anchorage, we should never have found 
her more, or found her stranded beyond help. As it 
was, there was little amiss, beyond the wreck of the 
mainsail. Another anchor was got ready, and dropped 
in a fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round 
again to Rum Cove, the nearest point for Ben Gunn's 
treasure-house; and then Gray, single-handed, returned 
with the gig to the Hispaniola, where he was to pass 
the night on guard. 

A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the entrance 
of the cave. At the top, the squire met us. To me he 
was cordial and kind, saying nothing of my escapade, 
either in the way of blame or praise. At Silver's polite 
salute he somewhat flushed. 

" John Silver/'' he said, " you're a prodigious villain 
and impostor — -a monstrous impostor, sir. I am told I 
am not to prosecute you. Well, then, I will not. But 
the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like mill- 
stones." 

" Thank you kindly, sir/' replied Long John, again 
saluting. 

" I dare you to thank me ! " cried the squire. " It 
is a gross dereliction of my duty. Stand back.''' 



THE FALL OF A CHIEFTAIN. 283 

And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a 
large, airy place, with a little spring and a pool of clear 
water, overhung with ferns. The floor was sand. Before 
a big fire lay Captain Smollett; and in a far corner, 
only duskily flickered over by the blaze, I beheld great 
heaps of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. 
That was Flint's treasure that we had come so far to 
seek, and that had cost already the lives of seventeen 
men from the Hispaniola. How many it had cost in 
the amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships 
scuttled on the deep, what brave men walking the plank 
blindfold, what shot of cannon, what shame and lies and 
cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there were 
still three upon that island — Silver, and old Morgan, 
and Ben Gunn — who had each taken his share in these 
crimes, as each had hoped in vain to share in the 
reward. 

" Come in, Jim/' said the captain. " You're a good 
boy in your line, Jim; but I don't think you and me'll 
go to sea again. You're too much of the born favourite 
for me. Is that you, John Silver ? What brings you 
here, man ? " 

" Come back to my dooty, sir," returned Silver. 

" Ah ! " said the captain ; and that was all he 
said. 

What a supper I had of it that night, with all my 
friends around me ; and what a meal it was, with Ben 
Gunn's salted goat, and some delicacies and a bottle of 
old wine from the Hispaniola. Never, I am sure, were 



284 



TREASURE ISLAND. 



people gayer oi happier. And there was Silver, sitting 
back almost out of the firelight, but eating heartily, 
prompt to spring forward when anything was wanted, 
even joining quietly in our laughter — the same bland, 
polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out. 



.■■■ 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

AND LAST. 

The next morning we fell early to work, for the 
transportation of this great mass of gold near a mile by 
land to the beach, and thence three miles by boat to the 
Hisjoaniola, was a considerable task for so small a number 
of workmen. The three fellows still abroad upon the 
Island did not greatly trouble us ; a single sentry on 
the shoulder of the hill was sufficient to insure us 
against any sudden onslaught, and we thought, besides, 
they had had more than enough of fighting. 

Therefore the work was pushed on briskly. Gray 
and Ben Gunn came and went with the boat, wbile the 
rest during their absences, piled treasure on the beach. 
Two of the bars, slung in a rope's-end, made a good 
load for a grown man — one that he was glad to walk 
slowly with. For my part, as I was not much use at 
carrying, I was kept busy all day in the cave, packing 
the minted money into bread-bags. 

It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones's hoard 
for the diversity of coinage, but so much larger and so 
much more varied that I think I never had more 
pleasure than in sorting them. English, French, 



286 TREASUEE ISLAND. 

Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons 
and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the 
pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred 
years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked 
like wisps of string or bits of spider's web, round pieces 
and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, 
as if to wear them round your neck — nearly every 
variety of money in the world must, I think, have found 
a place in that collection ; and for number, I am sure 
they were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached 
with stooping and my fingers with sorting them out. 

Day after day this work went on ; by every evening 
a fortune had been stpwed aboard, but there was another 
fortune waiting for the morrow ; and all this time we 
heard nothing of the three surviving mutineers. 

At last — I think it was on the third night — the 
doctor and I were strolling on the shoulder of the hill 
where it overlooks the lowlands of the isle, when, from 
out the thick darkness below, the wind brought us a 
noise between shrieking and singing. It was only a 
snatch that reached our ears, followed by the former 
silence. 

1 ' Heaven forgive them/' said the doctor ; " 'tis the 
mutineers ! " 

" All drunk, sir," struck in the voice of Silver from 
behind us. 

Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty, 
and, in spite of daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself 
once more as quite a privileged and friendly dependant. 



CHAPTEll LAST. 287 

Indeed, it was remarkable how well he bore these 
slights, and with what unwearying politeness he kept 
on trying to ingratiate himself with all. Yet, I think, 
none treated him better than a dog ; unless it was Ben 
Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his old quarter- 
master, or myself, who had really something to thank 
him for ; although for that matter, I suppose, I had 
reason to think even worse of him than anybody else, 
for I had seen him meditating a fresh treachery upon 
the plateau. Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly that 
the doctor answered him. 

" Drunk or raving/' said he. 

" Right you were, sir," replied Silver ; " and 
precious little odds which, to you and me." 

" I suppose you would hardly ask me to call you 
a humane man," returned the doctor, with a sneer, 
" and so my feelings may surprise you, Master Silver. 
But if I were sure they were raving — as I am morally 
certain one, at least, of them is down with fever — I 
should leave this camp, and, at whatever risk to my own 
carcase, take them the assistance of my skill." 

" Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong," 
quoth Silver. " You would lose your precious life, and 
you may lay to that. Fm on your side now, hand and 
glove; and I shouldn't wish for to see the party weakened, 
let alone yourself, seeing as I know what I owes you. 
But these men down there, they couldn't keep their word 
— no, not supposing they wished to ; and what's more, 
they couldn't believe as you could." 



288 TKEASURa ISLAND. 

" No/' said the doctor. " You're the man to keep 
your word, we know that." 

Well, that was about the last news we had of the 
three pirates. Only once we heard a gunshot a great 
way off, and supposed them to be hunting. A council 
was held, and it was decided that we must desert them 
on the island — to the huge glee, I must say, of Ben 
Gunn, and with the strong approval of Gray. We left 
a good stock of powder and shot, the bulk of the salt 
goat, a few medicines, and some other necessaries, tools, 
clothing, a spare sail, a fathom or two of rope, and, by 
the particular desire of the doctor, a handsome present 
of tobacco. 

That was about our last doing on the island. Before 
that, we had got the treasure stowed, and had shipped 
enough water and the remainder of the goat meat, in 
case of any distress ; and at last, one fine morning, we 
weighed anchor, which was about all that we could 
manage, and stood out of North Inlet, the same colours 
flying that the captain had flown and fought under at 
the palisade. 

The three fellows must have been watching us closer 
than we thought for, as we soon had proved. For, 
coming through the narrows, we had to lie very near the 
southern point, and there we saw all three of them 
kneeling together on a spit of sand, with their arms 
raised in supplication. It went to all our hearts, I 
think, to leave them in that wretched state; but we 
could not risk another mutiny ; and to take them home 



CHAPTER LAST. 289 

for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. 
The doctor hailed them aud told them of the stores we 
had left, and where they were to find them. But they 
continued to call us by name, and appeal to us, for God's 
sake, to be merciful, and not leave them to die in such a 
place. 

At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course, and 
was now swiftly drawing* out of earshot, one of them — 
I know not which it was — leapt to his feet with a hoarse 
cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent a shot 
whistling over Silver's head and through the main-sail. 

After that, we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and 
when next I looked out they had disappeared from the 
spit,* and the spit itself had almost melted out of sight 
in the growing distance. That was, at least, the end of 
that; and before noon, to my inexpressible joy, the 
highest rock of Treasure Island had sunk into the blue 
round of sea. 

We were so short of men, that every one on board 
had to bear a hand — only the captain lying on a mattress 
in the stern and giving his orders ; for, though greatly 
recovered" he was still in want of quiet. We laid her 
head for the nearest port in Spanish America, for we 
could not risk the voyage home without fresh hands ; 
and as it was, what with baffling winds and a couple of 
fresh gales, we were all worn out before we reached it. 

It was just at sundown when we cast anchor in a 
most beautiful land-locked gulf, and were immediately 
surrounded by shore boats full of negroes, and Mexican 

T 



290 TREASURE ISLAND. 

Indians, and half-bloods, selling fruits and vegetables, 
and offering to dive for bits of money. The sight of 
so many good-humoured faces (especially the blacks), 
the taste of the tropical fruits, and above all, the 
lights that began to shine in the town, made a most 
charming contrast to our dark and bloody sojourn on 
the island ; and the doctor and the squire, taking me 
along with them, went ashore to pass the early part of 
the night. Here they met the captain of an English man- 
of-war, fell in talk with him, went on board his ship, 
and, in short, had so agreeable a time, that day was 
breaking when we came alongside the Hispaniola. 

Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and, as soon as we 
came on board, he began, with wonderful contortions, 
to make us a confession. Silver was gone. The 
maroon had connived at his escape in a shore boat 
some hours ago, and he now assured us he had only 
done so to preserve our lives, which would certainly 
have been forfeit if " that man with the one leg had 
stayed aboard/'' But this was not all. The sea-cook 
had not gone empty handed. He had cut through a 
brlkh^ad unobserved, and had removed one of the sacks 
of coin, worth, perhaps, three or four hundred guineas, 
to help him on his further wanderings. 

I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of 
him. 

Well, to make a long story short, we got a few 
hands on board, made a good cruise home, and the 
Hispaniola reached Bristol just as Mr. Blandly was 



CHAPTER LAST. 291 

beginning to think of fitting ont her consort. Five 
men only of those who had sailed returned with her. 
" Drink and the devil had done for the rest/' with a 
vengeance ; although, to be sure, we were not quite 
in so bad a ease as that other ship they sang about : 

" With one man of her crew alive, 
"What put to sea with seventy-five." 

All of us had an ample share of the treasure, and 
used it wisely or foolishly, according to our natures. 
Captain Smollett is now retired from the sea. Gray 
not only saved his money, but, being suddenly smit 
with the desire to rise, also studied his profession ; and 
he is now mate and part owner of a fine full-rigged 
ship; married besides, and the father of a family. As 
for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he 
spent or lost in three weeks, or, to be more exact, in 
nineteen days, for he was back begging on the twentieth. 
Then he was given a lodge to keep, exactly as he had 
feared upon the island; and he still lives, a great 
favourite, though something of a butt, with the country 
boys, and a notable singer in church on Sundays and 
saints' days. 

Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable 
seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of 
my life ; but I daresay he met his old negress, and per- 
haps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. 
It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of com- 
fort in another world are very small. 



292 TREASURE ISLAND. 

The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I 
know, where Flint buried them ; and certainly they shall 
lie there for me. Oxen and wain-ropes would not 
bring me back again to that accursed island ; and the 
worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the 
surf booming about its coasts, or start upright in bed, 
with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in 
my ears : " Pieces of eight ! pieces of eight I " 



THE END. 



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marked by the most reverent admiration for its subject. Mr. Worcester holds to the 
reality of the visions of Swedenborg, and believes the revelations which his works 
furnish as the result to be supplementary in the quality of inspiration to the Bible. 
The work is not one of the most attractively written pieces of biography; but its sub- 
ject is interesting, and there are characteristics of Swedenborg which, aside from any 
supernatural endowment, plainly stamp him as one of the great minds of his time. 
His followers, if they are not as large as those of many of the religious sects of the 
day, are people of the purest minds and most intelligent perceptions, without a ten- 
dency to credulity or a tinge of fanaticism in their natures. This book will be wel- 
comed by them as a repository of much that is valuable in the founder of their 
religion. It contains a portrait of Swedenborg. Many extracts from his writings are 
also given as incidental to the biography." — Gazette. 



*** Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent 
post-paid on receipt of advertised price. 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston 






4b } 



THE NO NAME NOVELS. 

" No one of the numerous series of novels, with which the country has been 
deluged of late, contains as many good volumes of fiction as the 'No Name,' " says 
Scrtdner's Monthly. 

First Series. — Mercy Philbrick's Choice; Afterglow; Deir- 
dre ; Hetty's Strange History ; Is That All ? Will Denbigh, 
Nobleman; Kismet; The Wolf at the Door; The Great 
Match; Marmorne; Mirage; A Modern Mephistopheles; 
Gemini ; A Masque of Poets. 14 vols. Black and gold. 
Second Series. — Signor Monaldini's Niece; The Colonel's 
Opera Cloak; His Majesty, Myself; Mrs. Beauchamp 
Brown; Salvage; Don John; The Tsar's Window; Manu- 
ela Paredes ; Baby Rue ; My Wife and My Wife's Sister ; 
Her Picture; Aschenbroedel. 12 vols. Green and gold. 
Third Series. — The publishers, flattered with the reception 
given to the First and Second Series of " No Name Novels," 
among which may be named several already famous in the 
annals of fiction, will continue the issue with a Third Series, 
which will retain the original features of the First and Second 
Series, but in a new style of binding. Already published: 
Her Crime; Little Sister; Barrington's Fate; A Daughter 
of the Philistines; Princess Amelie. Price per vol., . $1.00 
New Editions of Popular Poets. 

JEAN INGELOW'S POETICAL WORKS. With por- 
trait. The only complete edition, and the only edition 
published with her sanction. Household edition, with red- 
line border, gilt edges. Cloth, black and gold. Price, $1.25 
" I greatly wish that Messrs. Roberts Brothers might have the exclusive right 

to publish my books in America. I consider that enlightened nations, as well as 

individuals, ought to recognize the right of authors, both to power over and to 

property in their works." — Jean Ingelow. 

CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI'S POETICAL WORKS. 

With portrait. Household edition, with red-line border, gilt 
edges. Cloth, black and gold. Price, . . . $2.00 

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI'S POETICAL WORKS. 
With portrait. Household edition, with red-line border, gilt 
edges. Cloth, black and gold. Price, . . . $2.00 

JOAQUIN MILLER'S POETICAL WORKS. With 
portrait. Household edition, with red-line border, gilt 
edges. Cloth, black and gold. Price, . . . $2.00 

EDWIN ARNOLD'S POETICAL WORKS. (Including 
"The Light of Asia.") Household edition, with red-line 
border, gilt edges. Cloth, black and gold. Price, . $2.00 

JOHN KEATS' POETICAL WORKS. Lord Houghton's 
edition, with a Memoir. With portrait. Household edition, 
with red-line border, gilt edges. Cloth, black and gold. 
Price, $2.00 

* # * Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent 
post-paid on receipt of advertised price. 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 



1950 













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